Control Engineering

TRW Conekt’s control engineering capabilities are an essential part of our customer’s microprocessor controlled products. Conekt’s expertise has grown from the earliest electronic engine management systems to braking and steering assistance systems, and to smart radar cruise control.  From powerful steer-by-wire actuation to the most sensitive hand-wheel controllers for electric power steering systems and driving simulators, Conekt’s wealth of expertise enables our customers to excel in their chosen field.

       
Problems surrounding variable sample rate, non-linearities, friction and inadequate or misunderstood system models have all been solved with simple and effective controller structures for microprocessor implementation.  Advanced control methods (including multivariable robust control, H-infinity, 2 degree-of-freedom, robust anti-windup etc) are applied where necessary to ensure that simple control structures can achieve excellent performance in the field.

A Low-order 2 DOF Robust Controller for SBW Application

Conekt’s engineers take pride in working with system experts to ensure that their solutions fit robustly with the demands of a product and to ensure that their control solutions are understood by local teams.  Model development can be supported and undertaken to strengthen expertise and provide sound foundations for design.  This also provides an effective means of proving controllers and of communicating the control design methodology to the customer.

Tuning-tools have also been developed for application engineers to simplify the tuning task over product variants. C, Matlab and Simulink are extensively used by Conekt’s engineers for design, analysis, implementation and software testing. A novel dynamic system testing (software-in-the-loop) technique is used by Conekt’s engineers to verify controller performance over stress conditions and across tuning ranges to enhance and ensure software- and implementation-quality.  This technique is applied from the highest level model to the lowest integer object-code-on-target operation.

                                     EPS Control Tuning GUI

For more information on control engineering or any of Conekt’s capabilities, please contact us