Direct multivariable controller tuning for internal combustion engine test benches

Dynamical test benches are typically used in the development phase of engine systems and require tracking controllers with high performance. Unfortunately, during such a work the components or operation parameters of the engine system are changed very frequently, making the use of classical model based control approaches very time-consuming. Against this background, this paper proposes a direct data-driven design approach for multivariable control of rotational speed and shaft torque of an internal combustion engine at a test bench based on an extended version of a recently introduced method for non-iterative direct datadriven tuning of multivariable controllers. This extension allows employing data collected in a closed-loop experiment in the direct identification of the controller parameters. The effectiveness of the proposed approach is shown on a test bench equipped with a production light duty Diesel engine. A comparison with the industrial state-of-the-art controller is provided on both a dynamically challenging test and a typical driving cycle as measured on an instrumented vehicle with the same internal combustion engine. The results confirm that the new method recovers the performance of the well-tuned industrial control, but can be developed in a fraction of the time as no explicit model of the system is needed.