Adaptive Power-Split Control Design for Marine Hybrid Diesel Powertrain

Abstract

It is known that mechanical wear and tear of components of large marine engines throughout their lifetime can cause the engine dynamics to alter. Since traditional control systems with fixed parameters cannot deal with this issue, the engine performance may degrade. In this work, we introduce adaptive control algorithms capable of adapting the control system in order to preserve the engine performance once its dynamics deviate from the nominal ones. Particularly, the direct and indirect model reference adaptation mechanisms are studied. In this work, the case of degraded oxygen sensor is investigated as an example of engine components deterioration throughout its lifetime. The controllers are implemented in Simulink, and their performance is evaluated under both nominal and degraded sensor conditions. Specifically, the sensor degradation is imitated by altering its time-delay. In such conditions, adaptive controllers demonstrate a notable improvement in tracking performance compared to the fixed parameters proportional-integral (PI) controller. Finally, the designed controllers are validated on the hybrid marine engine testbed using dSpace rapid prototyping system.