Experimental Study on the Performance of Controllers for the Hydrogen Gas Production Demanded by an Internal Combustion Engine

Abstract

This work presents the design and application of two control techniques—a model predictive control (MPC) and a proportional integral derivative control (PID), both in combination with a multilayer perceptron neural network—to produce hydrogen gas on-demand, in order to use it as an additive in a spark ignition internal combustion engine. For the design of the controllers, a control-oriented model, identified with the Hammerstein technique, was used. For the implementation of both controllers, only 1% of the overall air entering through the throttle valve reacted with hydrogen gas, allowing maintenance of the hydrogen–air stoichiometric ratio at 34.3 and the air–gasoline ratio at 14.6. Experimental results showed that the average settling time of the MPC controller was 1 s faster than the settling time of the PID controller. Additionally, MPC presented better reference tracking, error rates and standard deviation of 1.03 × 10 − 7 and 1.06 × 10 − 14 , and had a greater insensitivity to measurement noise, resulting in greater robustness to disturbances. Finally, with the use of hydrogen as an additive to gasoline, there was an improvement in thermal and combustion efficiency of 4% and 0.6%, respectively, and an increase in power of 545 W, translating into a reduction of fossil fuel use.

Computationally Efficient Nonlinear Model Predictive Control Using the L1 Cost-Function

“… Neural networks are also used in block-oriented cascade dynamical models, which consist of neural static blocks and linear dynamic blocks connected in series. Hammerstein [ 42 , 43 , 44 ] and Wiener [ 45 , 46 , 47 ] models are the most frequently used cascade models. Quasi-linear neural models [ 48 , 49 ].…”

NOx Reduction in Diesel-Hydrogen Engines Using Different Strategies of Ammonia Injection

“…In order to solve the chemical kinetics, several additional equations must be added to the model. Given a set of N species and m reactions, Equation 10, the local mass fraction of each species, f k , can be expressed by Equation (11).…”

“…On the other hand, hydrogen presents a wide flammability range, low ignition energy, high combustion velocity, and lower auto-ignition temperature [6,7]. Besides, hydrogen can be obtained directly from ammonia [8][9][10][11]. Some investigations [12][13][14][15] proposed hydrogen as a promoter to speed up diesel-ammonia combustion.…”

Model Predictive Control of Internal Combustion Engines: A Review and Future Directions

“…Reducing GHG emissions and improving the fuel economy of ICEs under real driving conditions are increasing challenges in the area of engine research [12][13][14]. The complexity of combustion phenomena combined with more stricter emission regulations and higher fuel economy demands requires more advanced engine controller.…”