Nonlinear PD State Feedback Control for Electronic Throttle Valve Based on Ant Colony Optimization

State feedback control has been designed to control the angular position and velocity of electronic throttle valve (ETV) system based on PD-framework control. In this study, two control schemes are adopted, linear and nonlinear PD controllers. This control scheme suggests that the actual states of nonlinear dynamical model of ETV system can be available via suitable physical means. In order to improve their performances, the two proposed control schemes (linear and nonlinear PD controllers) are optimized using an efficient evolutionary optimizer using Ant Colony Optimization (ACO) technique. Numerical simulations have been conducted to verify the effectiveness of optimized controllers and to show the differences in their performances. When the controlled ETV system is subjected to step and sinusoidal input, the results showed the superiority of the optimal PD controller over the linear control version in terms of transient characteristics and tracking errors. Moreover, the optimal nonlinear controller has better robustness characteristics and load reject capability than the optimal linear controller when the controlled system encounters a sudden change in load. Finally, the results showed that the nonlinear control version consumes lower energy (control effort) as compared to linear controller.