Pressure model based coordinated control of VGT and dual-loop EGR in a diesel engine air-path system

This paper describes a pressure-model-based coordinated control method of a variable geometry turbine (VGT) and dual-loop exhaust gas recirculation (EGR) in a diesel engine air-path system. Conventionally, air fraction or burnt gas fraction states are controlled for the control of dual-loop EGR systems, but fraction control is not practical since sensors for fractions are not available on production engines. In fact, there is still great controversy over how best to select control outputs for dual-loop EGR systems. In this paper, pressure and mass flow states are chosen as control outputs without fraction states considering the availability and reliability of sensors. A coordinated controller based on the simple control-oriented model is designed with practical aspects, which is applicable for simultaneous operations of high pressure (HP) EGR, low pressure (LP) EGR, and VGT. In addition, the controller adopts the method of input-output linearization using back-stepping to solve the chronic problems of conventional pressure-based controllers such as coupling effects between operations of HP EGR, and VGT. The control performance is verified by simulation based on the proven GT-POWER model of a heavy-duty 6000cc diesel engine air-path.