A k-step predictive scheme for speed control of diesel driven power-plants

An adaptive speed control scheme for diesel prime-movers is presented. Diesel prime-movers are characterized by nonlinear, time-varying parameters, including a nonlinear input dead-time variation that introduces an unknown delay between the injection of fuel and the production of engine torque. Such plants are difficult to control by conventional proportional-integral (PI) controllers. It is shown that by assuming the existence of an additional system time-constant, an explicit estimate of the plant parameters and dead-time can be obtained. The algorithm converges quickly. The resulting predictor can then be used to set up a k-step-ahead predictive controller. Studies are presented to compare the performance of the adaptive scheme to that of a fixed, tuned PI controller. The algorithm is shown to be flexible enough to operate under a wide range of droop settings, and equally applicable to various operating conditions