Serrani receives $240,000 NSF Grant for engine control research

Andrea Serrani, associate professor of electrical and computer engineering, and Marcello Canova, assistant professor of mechanical engineering, have received a three-year $239,801 grant from the National Science Foundation (NSF) for research on nonlinear control systems that may lead to better fuel economy and emissions control, while shortening the development and integration of new engine technologies.

The project, entitled “Control of Over-Actuated Nonlinear Systems with Application to High-Efficiency Internal Combustion Engines,” is funded through the NSF Division of Civil, Mechanical, and Manufacturing Innovation. The focus of this research is tied to improvements in engine performance that meet the automotive industry’s need to improve fuel efficiency in light of the increasingly stringent government mandates and fuel price increases.

The objective of the project is to establish a control design methodology for nonlinear systems possessing redundant control inputs, suitable for application to supervisory control of advanced combustion engines. Serrani and Canova aim to develop a novel control design methodology that hinges on the characterization of redundancy in geometric terms to determine the structure of the controller. The integration of two control strategies is pursued, one aiming at stabilizing the regulated outputs, the other at shaping the transient response by optimizing on-line a given cost function. They believe the overall integrated approach is novel and expect to extend the state-of-the-art in the theory and practice of control of complex systems.

To learn more, visit the NSF site: http://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward.do?AwardNumber=1234686