Trends and future perspectives of electronic throttle control system in a spark ignition engine

Electronic throttle control (ETC) system has turned into an extremely prominent system with a specific end goal to vary the intake airflow rate to provide a better fuel economy, emissions, drivability and also for integration with other systems in spark ignition engines. ETC system consists of mechatronic device called as electronic throttle body (ETB) which is located in the intake manifold of an engine after the air filter and also has a separate control system in the engine management system (EMS). The throttle angle has to be precisely maintained based on the driver and other system requirements to provide an enhanced throttle response and drivability. However, existence of nonlinearities in the system, such as limp-home position, friction, airflow and aging, affects the position accuracy of the throttle valve. A control system strategy is employed in EMS to handle the other system requirements in throttle opening angle estimation and the nonlinearities in position control. This work features developments within the electronic throttle control system and reviews about the various research work carried in this area. This work will not enforce any new results rather than it will discuss the trends followed in past and also proposes some of the future perspectives in the electronic throttle control process.