Stochastic Simulation and Performance Analysis of Classical Knock Control Algorithms

The random nature of knock events means that deterministic notions for control system design, analysis, and performance assessment, in particular, cannot be applied to knock-control systems. New methods are, therefore, presented for predicting and quantifying the statistical properties of the closed-loop response of a standard advance-retard knock-control strategy based on a computationally efficient Markov or first-step type analysis. The results provide new insight into the steady-state and transient response of the controller and enable these characteristics to be quantified in a more rigorous and repeatable way than has previously been possible.