Advanced Nonlinear Observer Control of SI Engines

In earlier work it has been shown that a nearly ideal solution to the problem of accurate estimation of the air mass flow to a central fuel injection (CFI) (or throttle body (TBI)) or EFI (or multi-point (MPI)) equipped engine is provided by using a closed loop nonlinear observer for the engine. With proper design this observer was shown to be both accurate and robust with respect to modelling end measurement errors. It is based on a Constant Gain Extended Kalman Filter (CGEKF).

Since the publication of this work, another type of observer has emerged in the literature for which claims of great robustness have been made. This observer is based on new developments in the area of nonlinear control theory and is called a Sliding Mode Observer (SMO).

In this paper these two types of observers are compared theoretically and experimentally on an engine mounted on a dynamometer. A very aggressive driving scenario is assumed for these tests. It is shown that while the sliding mode observer does have certain robustness characteristics, these are not of a higher order than those of a CGEKF based observer. Moreover the mode of operation of the SMO is inherently noisy which degrades its performance when compared to the CGEKF. Both observers can be realized in currently available engine control microprocessors.