Controlling powertrain systems at their high-efficiency limit.

Powerful model-based control tools have enabled the realization of modern clean and efficient automobiles. Our effort to minimize automotive pollution and fuel consumption at low cost is pushing us to control powertrain systems at their high efficiency limit where poorly understood phenomena occur. This semi-plenary story will highlight a few of these frontiers.
In the realm of internal combustion engines, a highly efficient gasoline engine with seemingly chaotic behavior will be controlled at the lean combustion stability limit. In the electrification realm, stressed-out batteries and dead-ended fuel cells will highlight the challenges and successes in understanding, modeling, and controlling highly efficient power conversion on-board a vehicle.
With these highlights it will become clear that as we race to improve mileage by 50% over the next decade powertrain control engineers will take the driver's seat!

Anna G. Stefanopoulou obtained her Diploma in Naval Architecture, her Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering, she teaches in Mechanical Engineering, but her research is closer to Chemical Engineering due to the process control themes she pursues. She is a Professor at the University of Michigan and the Director of the Automotive Research Center a U.S. Army Center of Excellence in Modeling and Simulation of Ground Vehicles. She was an assistant professor at the University of California, Santa Barbara, and a technical specialist (1996-1997) at Ford Motor Company. She is an ASME and an IEEE Fellow, the Inaugural Chair of the ASME DSCD Energy Systems Technical Committee, a member of the SAE Dynamic System Modeling Standards Committee and a member of a U.S. National Academies committee on Vehicle Fuel Economy Standards. She has co-authored a book on Control of Fuel Cell Power Systems, 10 US patents, 5 best paper awards and 200 publications on estimation and control of internal combustion engines and electrochemical processes such as fuel cells and batteries.