Improvement of Butterfly Valve Performances Using a Developed Nonlinear Model and Control Strategy for Transportation Applications

In industry, most controllers currently used are PID controllers due to their ease of implementation and parameter adjustment. PID controllers are designed using a linear model or a linearized model. Unfortunately, for highly nonlinear models, PID controllers cannot guarantee good performance over the entire operating range of the system. Indeed, in a real system, they can induce a strong overshoot or oscillatory response, and sometimes unstable behaviors, when the operating point changes. This paper aims to develop a gain-scheduling-based nonlinear controller where all system nonlinearities and closed-loop performance are considered. An air intake butterfly valve of the internal combustion engine is selected as a use case for this study. A nonlinear controller is designed based on developing a nonlinear multi-physics model where physical parameters are identified using a butterfly valve test bench. Simulation results confirm that performance, compared to PI controllers, is maintained over the entire operating range and show that the designed controller is robust and optimal regardless of the operating point.