Motion planning for experimental airpath control of a diesel homogeneous charge-compression ignition engine

A strategy based on motion planning is proposed for airpath control of turbocharged diesel engines equipped with exhaust gas recirculation. The objective is to manage the air and burned gas masses in the cylinder. The model considered uses simple balance equations for the intake manifold. The fully actuated dynamics are easily inverted, yielding straightforward open-loop control laws. This approach is complemented by experimentally derived look-up tables to apply driver requests into the problem of designing transitions between operating points. Experimental tests are reported for a four-cylinder homogeneous charge-compression ignition engine. Conclusions stress the possibility of taking into account the non-minimum phase effects of this system by a control law that is simple, yet efficient in practice.