More than one decade with development of common-rail diesel engine management systems: A literature review on modelling, control, estimation and calibration

Diesel engines are becoming more popular owing to their low fuel consumption and low emissions. The performance and emissions of diesel engines are strictly influenced by the injection pattern and the induced air quality. Utilization of diesel engines with mechatronic systems together with the advent of common-rail injection systems, which promotes the flexibility of injection control, has further increased diesel engine favourability and decreased the level of relevant emissions and noise. Development of mechatronic systems is a hierarchical procedure; in particular, in the case of common-rail diesel engine control, the extent and diversity of involved topics lead to a complex multi-stage development procedure. Many research studies have been carried out, thereby providing much literature in this field, which addresses different aspects of the development procedure for diesel engine management systems. Investigation of the existing literature will help researchers in the field to obtain a better understanding of the whole development procedure of diesel engine management systems and to make them familiar with new trends, state-of-the-art technologies and research fields. In this article, the control strategy development of common-rail diesel engine management systems is considered using the existing literature, i.e. the related literature was collected and categorized into the five main categories of modelling, sensitivity analysis, controller design, estimation and calibration. A brief description of every category followed by the relevant literature is given in the paper, and the common methods as well as the state-of-the-art techniques are discussed in each section. Finally, the strengths and weaknesses of the existing methods and the potential for further advancement are mentioned for each stage of the development of the engine management system, and a road map for the development of a common-rail diesel engine management system is presented.