Model-Predictive Control of Gas Exchange in a Gasoline Engine

Abstract: The process to induct air into engine cylinders, via the air inlet system and cylin-der port valves, is referred to as the "gas-exchange". Control is achieved by theturbo-charger, the intake throttle plate and the variable valve timing (VVT) sys-tem. These actuation systems traditionally use separate control with indepen-dent SISO feedback. There are however physical couplings that affect the con-trol performance. This thesis work looks at MPC control methods for a robustcontrol strategy. MPC methods are typically used for systems with slow dynam-ics, due to computational limits. But new advances in CPU performance shouldallow for real-time implementations for engine control.