Cycle‐by‐Cycle Adaptive Force Compensation for the Soft‐Landing Control of an Electro‐Mechanical Engine Valve Actuator

Abstract

AbstractElectro‐mechanical valve actuators (EMVA) are a solution for implementing variable valve actuation in internal combustion engines. Their use can increase engine power, reduce fuel consumption and pollutant emissions, while significantly improving engine efficiency. The control of this actuator is a complex task since non‐smooth nonlinearities, parameter variations and external forces strongly affect plant dynamics. In addition, the impact of the valve at its end‐strokes translates into mechanical wear and unacceptable noise, and in the worst case the electromagnet may also fail to catch the valve, causing system failure. The design of effective control strategies to ensure valve capture with low impact velocities is therefore essential for the correct functioning of such a mechatronic device. In this paper, the control problem of reducing the impact velocity at “landing” known in the literature as soft landing control, is tackled via novel cycle‐by‐cycle adaptive force compensation control algorithms. Two schemes are presented: a discrete adaptive proportional integral controller to regulate landing velocity to a preassigned set‐point, and a gradient descent method based controller to automatically achieve the minimum admissible impact velocity. The effectiveness of both methods in limiting landing velocities is shown numerically using a high predictive simulator of the EMVA system, when considering unknown varying environmental conditions, such as internal friction and external gas pressure forces.