Experimental Analysis of an Electronic Throttle Body Controlled with a Standard Regulator Augmented with a Model-based Nonlinear Feed-Forward Compensator

In this report we present the results of an in-depth experimental investigation of a throttle body controlled by means of a PI strategy augmented with a model based non linear compensator. The throttle body is the device dedicated to regulate the air-flow incoming into the engine. The mathematical description of the throttle is strongly nonlinear, moreover the unpredictable change into working conditions, such as temperature variation and electro-mechanical wear, make the parameters of the model highly uncertain. Due to the unmodelled dynamics and the imprecise knowledge of the plant parameters, the nonlinear compensation turns to be ineffective. The aim of this work is to show the incapability of the standard control approach to deal with automotive devices that are characterized by discontinuities, nonlinearities and unknown parameters. The necessity of more robust and flexible control schemes are supported by a great deal of experimental results. The poor tracking performances provided by a standard controller is the motivation for our further research. The reader can find details on mathematical description of the plant and the identification procedure to estimate its parameters in Techcnial Report 2009RR1887.