Design, Modeling, and Control of Clean and Efficient Automotive Propulsion System: A Mechatronic Approach

In this talk, an overview of the “mechatronic powertrain” and its potential impact on automotive fuel economy, emissions, and hybridization will be presented first. Key challenges for realizing the mechatronic powertrain will be discussed and three specific research efforts to address those challenges will be highlighted. They are high speed and precise actuation systems, systematic control design methodology, and flexible and accurate testing platform. We will then focus on the unique dynamics of the mechatronic powertrain and present some of the new development of internal model based tracking control for time-varying systems motivated by the system dynamics.

Zongxuan Sun received his Bachelor's degree in Automatic Control with honor from Southeast University (former Nanjing Institute of Technology), China in 1995. He earned a M.S. and a Ph.D. in Mechanical Engineering from University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in 1998 and 2000 respectively. After a brief stint in the disk drive industry, he joined General Motors Research and Development Center as a Senior Researcher and later was promoted to Staff Researcher. In August 2007, he joined the faculty at the Department Mechanical Engineering, University of Minnesota.