Model-based control of diesel engines with multiple fuel injections

We developed a feed-forward controller for a conventional diesel combustion engine with triple fuel injection and experimentally evaluated its performance. A combustion model that discretizes an engine cycle into a number of representative points to achieve a light calculation load is embedded into the controller; this model predicts the in-cylinder gas-pressure-peak timing with information about the operating condition obtained from the engine control unit. The controller calculates the optimal main-fuel-injection timing to control the in-cylinder gas-pressure peak using the prediction result as a controller with a single input and output. The controller’s performance was evaluated by experiments using a four-cylinder diesel engine under changing the target value of the in-cylinder gas-pressure-peak timing during a target-following test and the performance was also evaluated under changing the exhaust gas recirculation ratio at the constant target value of the in-cylinder gas-pressure-peak timing for the disturbance-response test. It was found that the controller could calculate the optimal main-injection timing over a cycle and maintain the targeted in-cylinder gas-pressure-peak timing even when the target value or exhaust gas recirculation changed. The combustion model was also shown to be fast enough at predicting diesel combustion for onboard control.