New and/or alternative approaches to physical plant performance control that can account for the health of the physical plant. A physical plant may be controlled by configurable controller, which may further comprise a low level controller associated with a higher level controller such as an Engine Control Unit (ECU). The ECU uses modeling to calculate an estimated operating value of a first parameter in the physical plant, and also uses a sensor to measure an operating value of the first parameter. The measured and modeled values are compared to determine the state of health (SOH) of the physical plant or a component thereof. The SOH may be stored, transmitted, or used to modify one or more control values used by the low level controller.

Systems and methods for waking a controller from a sleep mode are described. In one example, the controller may be woke in response to an estimated amount of time that it will take for a temperature in an evaporative emissions system to be within a threshold temperature of ambient temperature.

Systems and methods for waking a controller from a sleep mode are described. In one example, the controller may be woke in response to an estimated amount of time that it will take for a temperature in an evaporative emissions system to be within a threshold temperature of ambient temperature.

New and/or alternative approaches to physical plant performance control that can account for the health of the physical plant. A physical plant may be controlled by configurable controller, which may further comprise a low level controller associated with a higher level controller such as an Engine Control Unit (ECU). The ECU uses modeling to calculate an estimated operating value of a first parameter in the physical plant, and also uses a sensor to measure an operating value of the first parameter. The measured and modeled values are compared to determine the state of health (SOH) of the physical plant or a component thereof. The SOH may be stored, transmitted, or used to modify one or more control values used by the low level controller.

New and/or alternative approaches to physical plant performance control that can account for the health of the physical plant. A physical plant may be controlled by configurable controller, which may further comprise a low level controller associated with a higher level controller such as an Engine Control Unit (ECU). The ECU uses modeling to calculate an estimated operating value of a first parameter in the physical plant, and also uses a sensor to measure an operating value of the first parameter. The measured and modeled values are compared to determine the state of health (SOH) of the physical plant or a component thereof. The SOH may be stored, transmitted, or used to modify one or more control values used by the low level controller.

Examples of the present disclosure describe systems and methods for determining an estimated ambient air temperature in an environment in which a vehicle is operating. The estimated ambient air temperature may be compared to an ambient temperature sensor value. The comparison may be used to determine whether an ambient air temperature sensor of the vehicle is functioning properly or if an error notification or fault code should be triggered.

An intake air flow rate into an intake passage is detected with an internal combustion engine as a control device, and atmospheric pressure and temperature are estimated or detected. An intake passage internal average pressure and an intake passage internal average temperature in a region up to a throttle valve of the intake passage as one region are estimated. Distributions of a pressure and a temperature inside the intake passage are estimated based on the estimated intake passage internal average pressure, the intake passage internal average temperature, and a model of energy change caused by a constituent element included in the intake passage.

New and/or alternative approaches to physical plant performance control that can account for the health of the physical plant. A physical plant may be controlled by configurable controller, which may further comprise a low level controller associated with a higher level controller such as an Engine Control Unit (ECU). The ECU uses modeling to calculate an estimated operating value of a first parameter in the physical plant, and also uses a sensor to measure an operating value of the first parameter. The measured and modeled values are compared to determine the state of health (SOH) of the physical plant or a component thereof. The SOH may be stored, transmitted, or used to modify one or more control values used by the low level controller.

Described herein is a process for designing a virtual sensor that is able to estimate a variable of interest v as a function of a set of available variables u.sub.i. The process comprises the steps of: acquiring (1002) a design data-set D.sub.d comprising a number N of measured values v(ti) of the variable of interest v and corresponding measured values i(ti) of the available variables u.sub.i; determining a limit on the disturbances of the available variables u.sub.i and a limit on the errors of the method of measurement of the variable of interest v; selecting (1004) a Lipschitz function * with a respective Lipschitz constant , which is able to estimate the variable of interest v(t) as a function of a number n of past values of each available variable u.sub.i, by executing the following steps one or more times for different numbers n: a) determining a value for the Lipschitz constant y; b) defining (1006) a maximum limit (r(t)) and a minimum limit (r(t)) for the estimate of the variable of interest v as a function of the design data-set D.sub.d, and moreover the number n, the value for the Lipschitz constant y, the limit on the disturbances of the available variables u.sub.i, and the limit on the errors of the method of measurement of the variable of interest v, and choosing a Lipschitz function * comprised between the maximum limit (r(t)) and the minimum limit (r(t)); c) determining (1008) an estimation error *(*) for the Lipschitz function * and selecting the Lipschitz function *, associated to which is a respective Lipschitz constant y* and a respective number n*, that presents the minimum estimation error *(*(y*, n*)); and implementing (1012) the selected Lipschitz function * in an electronic circuit.

A valve control device controls an opening degree of a valve provided in an intake passage, an exhaust passage, or a passage connected one of these and includes an observed value acquisition unit, an inlet temperature acquisition unit, a target calculation unit, an equilibrium opening degree calculation unit, an observer, a correction opening degree calculation unit, an instruction opening degree calculation unit, and an output unit. The target calculation unit calculates an equilibrium state value and a target property value. The correction opening degree calculation unit calculates a correction opening degree by multiplying a gain matrix by a deviation vector including, a deviation between the equilibrium state value and the estimated state value and an integrated value of a deviation between the target property value and the estimated property value.