Estimation and adaptive nonlinear model predictive control of selective catalytic reduction systems in automotive applications

• Systematic and real-time design of ammonia coverage ratio references for control.
• Time-varying ammonia coverage ratio references preferred for emissions reduction.
• Nonlinear model predictive control of ammonia coverage ratio for a single-cell SCR.
• Nonlinear model predictive control of ammonia coverage ratios for a two-cell SCR.
• Consistent satisfaction of tailpipe emission requirements at each operating point.

The demands of high NOx conversion efficiency and low tailpipe ammonia slip for urea-based selective catalytic reduction (SCR) systems have been substantially increased in the past decade, as NOx emission legislations for Diesel engines are becoming more stringent than ever before. Since catalyst aging has a significant impact on SCR performance, robust and adaptive SCR control has been preferred for degraded SCR systems to realize emission control objectives. The purpose of this paper is twofold. Firstly, a robust ammonia coverage ratio observer was designed for estimating the ammonia coverage ratio reference for catalysts with different aging levels. An ammonia storage capacity observer was developed for estimating the actual ammonia storage capacity which can be reduced due to catalyst aging. An adaptive ammonia coverage ratio reference design was then developed to estimate the desired ammonia coverage ratio ranges at each instantaneous engine operating point for both single-cell and two-cell SCR systems at different aging levels based on a singular perturbation method. Secondly, to ensure the estimated ammonia coverage ratio falls in the desired ranges for most of engine operating conditions, robust nonlinear model predictive control (NMPC) algorithms were designed for both single-cell and two-cell SCR systems. Experimental data over US06 cycle were collected from a Diesel engine and aftertreatment system platform for controller verification. Simulation results under US06 test cycle demonstrate that the proposed NMPC algorithms were capable of consistently achieving high NOx conversion efficiency (>95.6%) and constrained tailpipe ammonia slip (<10 ppm on average and <12 ppm on the peak) for both fresh catalyst and aged catalyst with 30% loss of ammonia storage capacity.