Model-free adaptive control of combustion process in marine natural gas engine

doi:10.3785/j.issn.1008-973X.2025.06.022

Journal of ZheJiang University (Engineering Science)

2025, Vol. 59

Issue (6): 1311-1321 DOI: 10.3785/j.issn.1008-973X.2025.06.022

Model-free adaptive control of combustion process in marine natural gas engine

Rongjia LIN1(

),Yun LONG1,Chong YAO1,*(

),Tikang SONG2,Yun KE1

1. Yantai Research Institute, Harbin Engineering University, Yantai 264000, China
2. China National Heavy Duty Truck Group Co., Jinan 250000, China

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Abstract

The dynamic characteristics of the natural gas engine combustion process are difficult to describe, highly nonlinear, and subject to unknown disturbances, resulting in the low control precision of feedback control variable of combustion process. To address the above issue, an improved model-free adaptive controller (MFAC) was proposed. Firstly, a natural gas engine system model was established and its effectiveness was verified, and the combustion midpoint (CA50) was selected as the feedback control variable of the combustion process. The traditional MFAC was obtained by establishing a discrete partial form dynamic linearization model, using the system input and output data to estimate the pseudo partial derivatives of the ignition timing and air-fuel ratio during the combustion process. The MFAC continuously tracked the expected state updated online to realize the tracking control of CA50. Furthermore, in order to take into account the dynamic convergence rate and tracking accuracy of CA50, a fast convergence term based on the differential of the tracking error was introduced into the traditional MFAC, and strict stability proof and convergence performance analysis were provided for the closed loop system. Finally, two test experiments were conducted to compare the proposed controller with the PID controller, and the results showed that the proposed improved MFAC made significant improvements in robustness, convergence rate and tracking accuracy.

Key words： natural gas engine combustion process combustion midpoint model-free adaptive controller convergence rate online data

Received: 26 April 2024 Published: 30 May 2025

CLC:

TP 241

Fund: 山东省自然科学基金资助项目（ZR2023QE009）.

Corresponding Authors: Chong YAO E-mail: a13199462689@163.com;esmartcontrolheu@163.com

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Cite this article:

Rongjia LIN,Yun LONG,Chong YAO,Tikang SONG,Yun KE. Model-free adaptive control of combustion process in marine natural gas engine. Journal of ZheJiang University (Engineering Science), 2025, 59(6): 1311-1321.

URL:

https://www.zjujournals.com/eng/10.3785/j.issn.1008-973X.2025.06.022 OR https://www.zjujournals.com/eng/Y2025/V59/I6/1311

船用天然气发动机燃烧过程无模型自适应控制

天然气发动机燃烧过程的动态特性难以描述、非线性强、存在未知干扰，导致燃烧过程反馈量控制精度较低. 为此提出改进的无模型自适应控制器（MFAC). 建立天然气发动机系统模型并校验其有效性，选取燃烧中点(CA50)作为燃烧过程反馈控制量. 通过建立离散的偏格式动态线性化模型，利用系统输入输出数据估计燃烧过程中点火正时和空燃比的伪偏导数，求解得到MFAC控制器. MFAC控制器持续追踪在线更新的期望状态进而实现对CA50的跟踪控制. 为了兼顾CA50动态收敛速度和静态跟踪精度，在MFAC控制器中引入基于跟踪误差变化的快速收敛项，并针对闭环系统给出严格的稳定性和收敛性能分析. 设计2种测试方案，将所提控制器与增量式PID控制器进行对比，结果表明所提出的控制器在鲁棒性、收敛速度和跟踪精度方面都有更优越的表现.

关键词： 天然气发动机, 燃烧过程, 燃烧中点, 无模型自适应控制, 收敛速度, 在线数据

Fig.1 Schematic diagram of natural gas engine system model

Tab.1 Basic structural parameters of natural gas engine

Tab.2 Correction working point of natural gas engine model

Fig.2 Model calibration curve

Fig.3 Flowchart of MFAC controller design for combustion process

Fig.4 Semi physics experiment platform of MFAC

Fig.5 Comparison of experimental results of CA50 under constant speed condition

Fig.6 CA50 performance during sudden load torque variations

Fig.7 Comparison of experimental performance indicators under different working conditions


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