Sensor fault‐tolerant control for an internal combustion engine

Abstract

SummaryThis research presents the design of a fault‐tolerant system based on a dual extended Kalman filter (DEKF) and a bank of two high‐gain observers to ensure the continuous operation of an internal combustion engine (ICE) despite total and partial faults in the mass airflow (MAF) sensor, temperature sensor, and pressure sensor. The DEKF aims to estimate the air mass flow rate () through the throttle valve. The DEKF uses the temperature and pressure measured in the intake manifold to accurately estimate the (), a failure in any of both sensors will not allow the correct functioning of the DEKF. Therefore, a bank of two high‐gain observers is proposed to estimate the pressure and temperature from only one measure. Observer 1 estimates the temperature and pressure from the pressure, and Observer 2 uses the temperature for estimating pressure and temperature. Hence, if the temperature or pressure sensors fail, the estimated temperature or pressure will replace the ill‐measure signal. The results show the effectiveness of the proposed fault‐tolerant system in the case of one sensor or multiple sensor faults.