Design and implementation of a digital multimode H∞ controller for the Spey turbofan engine

In this paper, a 2 degrees-of-freedom multimode controller design for the Rolls Royce Spey turbofan engine is presented. The controller is designed via discrete time H∞-optimization; it provides robust stability against coprime factor uncertainty, and a degree of robust performance in the sense of making the closed-loop system match a prespecified reference model. Multimode control logic is developed to preserve structural integrity of the engine by limiting engine variables to specified safe values. A simple strategy for antiwindup and bumpless transfer between controllers, based on the Hanus anti-windup scheme (1987, “Conditioning Technique, A General Anti-Windup and Bumpless Transfer Method,” Automatica, 23(6), pp. 729–739) and the observer-based structure of the controller, is presented. The structure of the overall switched controller is described. Actual engine test results using the Spey engine test facility at Pyestock are presented. The controller is shown to perform a variety of tasks, its multimode operation is illustrated and improvements offered on existing engine control systems are discussed.