Development and Testing of a Reconfigurable Gasoline Engine Control Module
Abstract
A dynamometer laboratory may typically face the following issues on a daily basis: the lack/availability of a calibration, software limiters, hardware failure codes/modes, hardware/software level incompatibilities and the time/knowledge required to troubleshoot these issues. A Reconfigurable Engine Controller (REC), which provides freedom to operate the engine under any condition, eliminates many of these issues. The result is an accelerated engine development process which includes engine mapping and/or testing new algorithms before implementation on production hardware. A REC can provide a flexible tailored controller to suit the needs of the individual testing application. This research used the dSPACE MicroAutoBox and RapidPro hardware and software with MATLAB/Simulink (the coding tool) to successfully develop and test a REC under a series of steady state engine operating conditions. Proportional Integral Derivative (PID) controllers were also successfully implemented for the throttle body position, lambda sensor heating and fuel pulse width modulation. The data collected from a combustion analysis system along with the production engine controller and the REC parameters was used to validate the new controller. The results indicated that the system performance was similar to that of the production controller.