A Switching Cascade Sliding PID-PID Controllers Combined with a Feedforward and an MPC for an Actuator in Camless Internal Combustion Engines

This paper deals with a hybrid actuator composed by a piezo part and a hydraulic one and with a cascade PID-PID control structure for camless engine motor applications. The idea is to use the advantages of both, the high precision of the piezo part and the force of the hydraulic one. In fact, piezoelectric actuators (PEAs) are commonly used for precision positionings, despite PEAs present nonlinearities, such as hysteresis, saturations, and creep. In the control problem such nonlinearities must be taken into account. In this paper the Preisach dynamic model with the above mentioned nonlinearities is considered together with a cascade PID-PID controller combined with a feedforward and an Model Predictive Control regulator. The Model Predictive Control uses a particular geometric structure to speed up the dynamic response of the controlled system. In particular, the hysteresis effect is considered and a model with a switching function is used also for the controller design. Simulations with real data are shown. Key-words: PID controllers, Lyapunov’s approach, piezo actuators, Model Predictive Control