On the variable structure control of a throttle actuator for speed control applications

This paper presents a sliding mode controller which controls the throttle angle position of an internal combustion engine based vehicle. The throttle actuator has two valves that can be opened and closed for control purposes which in return exhibits two modes of operation. Meanwhile the model of the actuator switches between two structures, one of which is stable and the other unstable. Due to the nature of the control input, a sliding mode controller is designed to regulate the throttle opening to a desired value. The stability and convergence properties of the closed loop system are investigated in the framework of variable structures. A modified asymptotic observer is designed to estimate the state variables where steady state Kalman filter gains are used. Some simulation and experimental results are also presented.