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Ever increasing requirements for vehicle performance, fuel economy and emissions have been driving the development and adoption of various types of hybrid powertrains. There are many different configurations of hybrid powertrains, which may include such components as engine, generator and inverter, battery pack, ultracapacitor, traction motor and inverter, transmission, and various control units. A hardware-in-the loop (HiL) testing solution that is flexible enough to accommodate different types of hybrid powertrain configurations and run a range of test scenarios is needed to support on-going development activities in this field. This paper describes the design and implementation of such a HiL testing system. The system is centered on a high performance, real-time controller that runs powertrain, driveline, vehicle, and driver models.

Engine Electronic Throttle Control (ETC) systems are gaining success in high volume applications. This system helps to improve overall engine and vehicle performance, as well as facilitate the function integration of related control features. The requirement for an ETC system is that it fulfills the commanded throttle plate opening as quickly and accurately as possible. Because of nonlinearity of the electronic throttle system, gain-scheduled control is often used. A method to automatically tune the control for each operating region is needed. In this paper the engine electronic throttle is considered as having dominant linear dynamics for each operating region. A Two-Degree-of-Freedom (2-DOF) PID controller and a method of using Model Reference Adaptive Control (MRAC) algorithm to automatically tune the PID control gains are designed.

To meet the ever increasing requirements for engines and vehicles in the areas of performance, fuel economy, emission, and meanwhile reduce product development time, Hardware-in-the-loop (HIL) simulation is increasingly used in automotive control system development. Engine-in-the-loop (EIL) vehicle simulation, which is a specific form of HIL simulation, is an approach in which a physical engine (together with its control unit) is coupled to virtual vehicle and driver models through a high power, low inertia engine dynamometer in the engine test cell environment. EIL can be used to perform powertrain control development, as well as engine and vehicle performance evaluation. Because of its advantages in repeatability and flexibility etc., especially for transient operating mode study, EIL has become a powerful tool and will be more widely used in the near future. Design and implementation of an EIL vehicle simulation system is described.

To fulfill ever increasingly stringent emission regulations, a great many studies on engine control and catalytic converter performance have been made. Topics of great interest in this area, to name a few, include: the relationship between catalyst light-off time and air-fuel (A/F) ratio; the relationship between forced A/F ratio modulation and catalyst efficiency; the effects of phase-shifted A/F ratio modulation between banks of a dual bank engine, or among cylinders of a single manifold engine on catalyst efficiency; and methods of modeling and measuring the oxygen storage capacity of a catalytic converter by rich-lean transition, A/F ratio sweeping, or other on-line estimation methods. To undertake this type of research, an engine control system with necessary functions, especially with very flexible A/F ratio control capabilities, is needed.

To meet the ever increasing requirements for engines and vehicles in the areas of performance, fuel economy and emission, and reduce product development time, we see the need for an integrated development environment which combines engine rapid control prototyping (RCP) capability with real-time vehicle simulation capability using an engine dynamometer in the test cell. Design and implementation of such a system with the ADX universal high-speed system controllers are described. An application example of simulating an FTP-75 cycle in the test cell while the engine is under ADX control is presented. This system moves a lot of work from the whole vehicle environment to the engine test cell environment, and is a powerful tool for quick development and testing of control algorithms as well as calibration.