SDRE Control Applied to the Wheel Speed of a Compressed Air Engine with Crank-Connecting-Rod Mechanism

Abstract

Renewable energy sources for vehicles have been the motivation of many researches around the world. The reduction of fossil fuels deposits and increase of the pollution in cities bring the need of more efficient and cleaner energy sources. In this way, this work will present the application of a compressed air engine applied to a bicycle. The engine is composed of two pneumatic cylinders connected to the bicycle wheel through a crank-connecting-rod mechanism. In order to control the velocity of the bicycle, a strategy of control composed of two controls was implemented: a feedback and a feedforward control. For feedback control, the State-Dependent Riccati Equation (SDRE) control and also a proportional-derivative (PD) control are considered, considering three cases for velocity bicycle variation: 10 km/h, 20 km/h, and 30 km/h. The equations of motion of the system were obtained through the Lagrangian energy method. Numerical simulations were performed in order to analyze the dynamics of the system and the efficiency of the controllers.