Electronic throttle control for ride-by-wire in sport motorcycles

This paper presents the analysis and the design of the servo-controller for an electronic throttle body (ETB) designed for ride-by-wire applications in racing motorcycles. Specifically, the open-loop dynamics of the system is studied in detail discussing the effects of friction. Further, the system to be controlled is experimentally identified and a model-based gain-scheduled PID controller for throttle position tracking is proposed. The performance of the controlled system is compared to the intrinsic limit of the actuator and tested on a sport motorbike.