918 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON CONTROL SYSTEMS TECHNOLOGY, VOL. 29, NO.
2, MARCH 2021
Beta-Distribution-Based Knock Probability Estimation, Control Scheme, and
Experimental Validation for SI Engines
Kai Zhao , Yuhu Wu , Member, IEEE, and Tielong Shen , Member, IEEE
Abstract— The fuel efficiency and power output of spark
ignition (SI) engines are closely related to the spark timing.
Advancing the spark timing is usually used as an approach to
increase the efficiency. However, under some operating condi-
tions, advanced spark timing can trigger abnormal combustion,
which causes knocking. To avoid cylinder damage and to increase
the engine efficiency, feedback control, which addresses the
knocking phenomenon as a stochastic process, is required. In this
brief, a Bayesian estimate of knock probability is used to replace
the maximum likelihood estimate in a likelihood-ratio-based
knock control strategy. The beta distribution is used to represent
the distribution of the knock probability estimate based on the
independent and identically distributed property of knock events.
The proposed control algorithm is validated on a full-scale test
bench with a production SI engine and is compared with the
conventional spark advance control approach and the maximum-
likelihood-based approach. The results show that the proposed
approach is able to control and maintain a knock probability
close to the target and introduce a low dispersion of spark timing
after convergence.
Index Terms— Bayes’ rule, beta distribution, knock, likelihood
ratio test, spark ignition (SI) engine, statistic control.
N OMENCLATURE
K adv Gain for the spark timing increase.
K ret Gain for the spark timing reduction.
K seg Number of knock events in the segment.
Pm Intake manifold pressure [bar].
TKI Threshold of the KI.
X Total observation of binary knock events,
{x 1 , . . . , x n }.
α, β Parameters of the beta distribution.
α0 , β0 Initial parameters of the beta distribution.
λ Likelihood ratio.
λT Threshold of the likelihood ratio.
θ Knock probability obtained from the Bayesian
approach.
ks Number of knock events in the sample.
Manuscript received May 27, 2019; revised September 15, 2019 and
December 20, 2019; accepted March 4, 2020. Date of publication April 6,
2020; date of current version February 9, 2021. Manuscript received in final
form March 10, 2020. This work was supported by Toyota Motor Corporation,
Japan. Recommended by Associate Editor E. Hellstrom. (Corresponding
author: Tielong Shen.)
Kai Zhao and Tielong Shen are with the Department of Engineering
and Applied Sciences, Sophia University, Tokyo 102-8554, Japan (e-mail:
tylerzhaokai@eagle.sophia.ac.jp; tetu-sin@sophia.ac.jp).
Yuhu Wu is with the School of Control Science and Engineer-
ing, Dalian University of Technology, Dalian 116024, China (e-mail:
wuyuhu@dlut.edu.cn).
Color versions of one or more of the figures in this article are available
online at https://ieeexplore.ieee.org.
Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/TCST.2020.2980799
1063-6536 © 2020 IEEE. Personal use is permitted, but republication/redistribution requires IEEE permission.
See https://www.ieee.org/publications/rights/index.html for more information.
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m Length of a segment.
n seg Amount of segments.
ns Sample amount.
pest Estimated knock probability.
ps Knock probability of the sample obtained from
the frequentist approach.
ptar Target knock probability.
w α0 + β0 .
xi Observed binary knock event at i th cycle, {0, 1}.
CI Credible interval [–].
KI Knock intensity.
SA Spark advance [◦ BTDC].
TA Throttle angle [◦ ].
I. I NTRODUCTION
I N SPARK ignition (SI) engines, the combustion process
is initiated by a spark, whose timing is required to be
optimized to maintain a certain engine power output, fuel
economy, and emission profile [1], [2]. In most operating
conditions, the spark timing is often advanced and optimized
toward the maximum brake torque (MBT) location [3]. How-
ever, advanced spark timing can trigger the end gas of the
combustion and cause a metallic-sounding noise known as
knocking. The rapid energy release and pressure oscillations
behind such phenomenon lead to vibration through the engine
block and can potentially damage engine structures [4], [5].
In some operating conditions, especially under heavy engine
load conditions, the MBTs are located beyond the feasible
SA regions that are free of knocking. To maximize the brake
torque in such conditions while avoiding engine damage, the
knock probability, therefore, has to be controlled at or under
a certain upper bound [6]–[8].
A considerable number of studies have addressed knock
phenomenon analysis and detection. Zhen et al. [9] and Shen
et al. [10] provided reviews on the knock phenomenon and
detection methods. In [11], a transformation that combines a
resonance theory with signal analysis is proposed as a new
mathematical tool for in-cylinder pressure resonance intensity
analysis. In [12], the KI is analyzed and modeled using a dual
lognormal model to improve the quality of fit. Bares et al.
[13] analyzed the in-cylinder pressure using a time–frequency
method and proposed a new knock event definition to improve
knock detection. For knock detection, in-cylinder pressure-
based methods are proposed in [14]. In [15], the vibration
of the engine block is used for knock detection. In [16],
rather than knock events, more effort is applied to knock
margin estimation. Two approaches, one based on a physical
ZHAO et al.: BETA-DISTRIBUTION-BASED KNOCK PROBABILITY ESTIMATION, CONTROL SCHEME, AND EXPERIMENTAL VALIDATION
model and one employing a gray box for margin estimation,
are proposed and compared. In addition to this research on
knock phenomena, Wu and Naik [17] introduced hardware
implementations for digital signal processing, including knock
and misfire detection, from a more industrial point of view.
In contrast to the vast number of studies on the knock phe-
nomenon, knocking control, which is equally important, has
received less attention due to the difficulties in the stochastic
control of knock events. A widely used control strategy in
both production and experimental engines, often called the
conventional strategy, advances the SA for every nonknocking
cycle and retards the SA when knock occurs [18]. As a
result, SA is cycled in and out of the knock region, causing
a large SA dispersion and a mean SA value that substantially
below the borderline, which leads to a lower engine efficiency
[19]. In [20], the conventional approach is combined with an
adaptive method using the likelihood for control gain adjust-
ment, which efficiently reduces the SA variation. Regarding
the stochastic characteristics of combustion and knocking
[8], [21], knocking control, in a statistical way, has been
carried out in many research efforts. In [19] and [21]–[23],
maximum likelihood (ML) estimation-based controllers are
proposed and validated in simulations. In [24], the likelihood
controller is further tested on an engine test bench with a
production SI gasoline engine. In [25], knock limit controllers
based on the logarithm of the KI and probability estimation
with the exponential moving average method are developed
and tested. Recently, the borderline SA is directly estimated
using the Bayesian method in [26]. This brief indicates that
with a similar response speed as the conventional method,
the Bayesian method can provide less SA dispersion and
operates closer to the borderline. The experimental results of
these methods have shown a lower SA dispersion than that
of the conventional method and have shown the viability and
effectiveness of controlling the knock probability statistically.
Due to the stochasticity of the knock phenomenon, the sta-
tistically estimated knock probability as well as the knowl-
edge of the associated uncertainty can help decision-making
regarding SA adjustment. In addition, we also want to integrate
prior knowledge, if there is any, with the observations in the
estimation process. In this brief, a novel stochastic knock
control approach based on the Bayesian probability estimation
method is proposed. To the best of our knowledge, this is
the first time that the Bayesian method combined with the
beta distribution has been applied to online knock probability
estimation and control. The main contribution of this brief can
be summarized as follows.
1) Classifying KI into binary signals {0, 1} according to a
threshold for knock and nonknock events, respectively,
the independent and identically distributed (i.i.d.) prop-
erty of the binary knock events is validated using the
data from a production SI engine.
2) For knock probability estimation, different from the
single-point estimation in the frequentist approach,
the knock probability with uncertainty is represented by
a beta distribution and is updated in a Bayesian way
involving the observed binary samples and prior knowl-
edge of the previously estimated knock probability.
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919
Given that the probability change is small after a slight
SA adjustment, prior knowledge can provide a favorable
start for updating the probability estimation. Since the
beta distribution is conjugate to the binomial distribu-
tion, which represents the likelihood of the observations,
the estimation update is largely simplified and requires
less computing power for real-time control.
3) For knock probability control, motivated by the
likelihood-based method, a likelihood ratio test using the
estimated knock probability and the target probability is
utilized for decision-making regarding whether an SA
adjustment is necessary.
Preliminary work can be found in [27], which briefly
explains knock probability estimation using the Bayesian
method, and initial experimental results are shown. In this
brief, more details are described in the online sequential
estimation of the knock probability and controller parameter
settings. More experimental validations and comparisons are
also made in this brief. This brief is organized as follows.
In Section II, the experimental environment of the engine test
bench is introduced. Following that introduction, the charac-
teristics of the binary knock signals sampled from a production
engine are analyzed. In Section III, the conventional and
the likelihood-based knock probability control schemes are
described. In Section IV, knock probability estimation using
the Bayesian method is introduced first. The overall control
structure and parameter settings for the control adjustment are
then described in detail. The validation results of the proposed
approach are analyzed in Section V. Some challenges and
problems of the proposed method are discussed in Section VI.
Finally, brief conclusions are provided in Section VII.
II. S TOCHASTICITY A NALYSIS OF K NOCK E VENTS
In this section, the relationship between the SA, KI, and
knock probability is described. Furthermore, the characteristics
of a knock event sequence are analyzed from statistical aspects
to show that the knock events can be considered i.i.d., and the
sequence can be idealized as a Bernoulli process at a steady
engine operating condition. However, before discussing the
property validations, the engine test bench setup is described
since all of the data collection, along with the control algo-
rithm implementation and validation, is conducted on this
platform.
A. Engine Test Bench Setup
The experiments in this brief are performed on a full-size
engine test bench with a production engine. The equipped
engine is a four-cylinder TOYOTA 2ZR-FXE spark ignition
engine (1797 cc, 13:1 compression ratio, 80.5-mm bore, and
88.3-mm stroke). The engine speed and load are controlled
through a dynamometer from Horiba. An ECU from TOYOTA
and a CPU-field-programmable gate array (FPGA) embedded
system from dSPACE are used to provide real-time signal
processing and engine control. The in-cylinder pressure is
sampled by piezoelectric pressure sensors from Kistler every
0.1 crank angle. The KI is calculated by means of the discrete
Fourier transform (DFT) of the measured pressure over a
920
Fig. 1. Validation of the knock i.i.d. property. Top: cycle-to-cycle autocor-
relation with enlarged section from Lag 1 to Lag 20. Bottom: binary knock
binomial distribution test.
frequency band from 8 to 10 kHz [28]. The DFT algorithm
is implemented on a DS5203 FPGA board for real-time
computing.
B. Binary Knock i.i.d. Property Validations
Given a KI threshold TKI , the KI data can be converted into
the binary values {x i }, where
 λ=
1, K I ≥ TKI
xi = ∀i ∈ {1, 2, . . . , n s }
0, K I < TKI
with n s the number of engine cycles, 0 nonknock, and 1 knock.
To validate the cyclically independent property, the auto-
correlation of the binary knock event is calculated. A total
of 39 000 cycles of data are collected at a steady operating
condition of 1200 r/min, 70 Nm, and SA = 17◦ before top
dead center (BTDC). As shown in the top of Fig. 1, all
the autocorrelation values are close to or within the 95%
confidence bounds (blue lines); thus, it is reasonable to assume
that the binary knock events are cyclically independent. Next,
to validate the identically distributed property, the sample
data are equally divided without overlapping into n = 195
segments with m = 200 cycles in each. The empirical knock
probability of the whole sample is ps = 1/n ni=1 x i = ks /n s .
If the knock events are identically distributed, then the relative
frequency of the knock amount in each segment, kseg , should
follow a binomial distribution, that is, kseg ∼ Binom(m, ps ).
The results are shown in the bottom of Fig. 1. A chi-square
goodness-of-fit test (MATLAB chi2gof function) was further
used to give a more statistically quantified measure. The test
gives a p-value of p = 0.4785, which indicates that the test
fails to reject the null hypothesis that kseg ∼ Binom(m, ps ) at
the significance level of 0.05.
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IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON CONTROL SYSTEMS TECHNOLOGY, VOL. 29, NO. 2, MARCH 2021
III. E XISTING A PPROACHES
A. Conventional Controller
Conventional knock strategies [3], [18] essentially use only
the target knock probability ptar and binary knock event x for
control. This method is widely utilized in production vehicles.
The SA at each combustion cycle n is calculated as
SA(n + 1) = SA(n) + K adv (1 − x(n)) − K ret x(n). (2)
For every nonknock cycle, the SA is increased by the amount
K adv . If a knock is detected, the SA is decreased by the amount
K ret . To let the knock probability be ptar , the values of K adv
and K ret are assigned to satisfy
K adv (1 − ptar ) = K ret ptar .
In the approach, the knock probability is controlled at ptar ,
but the SA continues to ramp up and drop down around the
SA borderline of the ptar knock probability rather than settle
down at the borderline, and the resultant distribution of SA,
therefore, exhibits a widespread. This control approach is used
as a baseline in the comparison of experimental results.
B. ML-Based Controller
In [23] and [24], the knock probability is estimated using
the ML method as pMLE = k/n, which is the ratio between
the number of knock cycles k and the number of total
observations n. Then, a likelihood ratio test, given by (3),
is used to determine whether an SA adjustment is necessary,
and the adjustment volume is needed. More details on the
likelihood ratio test are described in Section IV
k
ptar (1 − ptar )n−k
. (3)
k
pMLE (1 − pMLE)n−k
(1)
This control approach uses only observations for probability
estimation and control, that is, when the engine operating
condition is changed, i.e., after SA adjustment, the probability
estimator resets and restarts from the initial state.
IV. A LGORITHM D ESIGN AND C ONTROL S TRUCTURE
Regarding the stochastic property of the knock events,
the knock probability control algorithms can be divided into
two steps: knock probability estimation and spark timing
control. In this section, the mathematical preliminaries on the
knock probability estimation in a Bayesian way are first intro-
duced. Following that step, the proposed control algorithm and
details about the parameter settings for control are described.
A. Bayesian Method for Knock Probability Estimation
For probability estimation, due to the stochasticity of the
knock events, a single-value estimation is not enough to
express both the estimated knock probability and the degree
of uncertainty in the estimation. The Bayesian method handles
these problems in a natural way in which the value of the
knock probability is treated as a variable that follows some
probability distribution and is updated when more observations
are made.
ZHAO et al.: BETA-DISTRIBUTION-BASED KNOCK PROBABILITY ESTIMATION, CONTROL SCHEME, AND EXPERIMENTAL VALIDATION 921

observations X in a Bayesian way. The update process can be

simply expressed in the Bayesian inference form as
f (X|θ ) p(θ )
p(θ |X) =  . (7)
 f (X|θ ) p(θ )dθ
1) p(θ ) is the prior probability distribution. In this case,
the beta distribution is used as this prior distribution
that incorporates an estimate of how θ is probably
distributed.
2) f (X|θ ) is the likelihood function. X is a fixed parameter
since it is the observed knock event sequence, while θ
can be varied
n!
f (X|θ ) = L(θ ) = θ k (1 − θ )n−k . (8)
k!(n − k)!
Fig. 2. Beta distribution of different parameters. 3) p(θ |X), the posterior probability distribution, can then
be calculated using the prior distribution and the likeli-
hood. Leaving out the normalizing constant, the denom-
1) Representing a Knock Probability With Uncertainty: Let inator, in (7), it is clear that the posterior is proportional
θ ∈ [0, 1] be the knock probability to be estimated. To repre- to the product of the prior and the likelihood. More
sent θ with uncertainty, a probability density distribution that details on the Bayesian inference can be found in [29]
ranges within [0, 1] is used. Under the assumption that the and [30].
binary knock events are i.i.d., the beta distribution is a natural 3) Conjugate Prior: Replacing the prior distribution and
candidate for its ease of comprehension and computing [29]. likelihood function in (7) with (4) and (8), respectively,
The function of the beta distribution is defined as the posterior distribution becomes
1
Beta(θ |α, β) = θ α−1 (1 − θ )β−1 I(0,1) (θ ) (4) p(θ |X) = Beta(θ |k + α, (n − k) + β) (9)
B(α, β)
where which is therefore another beta distribution, the parameters of
 +∞ which are updated according to the number of knocks k and
(α)(β)
B(α, β) = , (α) = x α−1 e−x dx the total engine cycles n in the observations. The posterior
(α + β) 0 expectation can be simply derived as
and I(0,1) is the characteristic function of (0, 1), that is
 α+k
E(θ |X) = (10)
1, θ ∈ (0, 1) α+β +n
I(0,1) (θ ) =
0, θ ∈
/ (0, 1). without the need to calculate the integral in (7). Let w = α +β
be the sum of the parameters of the prior beta distribution;
The expectation and variance of the beta distribution are as
then, the posterior expectation can be seen as a weighted
follows:
combination of the prior information and observations as
α
E(θ ) = (5) w α0 n k
α+β E(θ |X) = + . (11)
αβ w + n 
w w + n 
n
Var(θ ) = . (6)
(α + β)2 (α + β + 1) prior observation

Let α and β be the amount of knocks and nonknocks in the
observed samples, respectively. Since α and β are sufficient
to represent the beta distribution, the estimation of the knock
probability θ can also be sufficiently described by the amount
of knocks and nonknocks.
Fig. 2 shows the beta distribution with different values of
α and β as its parameters. When α = β = 1, the distribution
becomes the uniform distribution, and when α > 1, β > 1,
the distribution becomes a unimodal distribution where there
exists only one peak. For the real-world knock probability,
the distribution forms a narrow peak close to 0 (α  β).
2) Estimation Update: Given a proper initial distribution of
the knock probability θ , when new observations of n knock
events X = x 1 , . . . , x n containing k knocks have been made,
the probability distribution of θ can be updated in light of the
Taking pest = E(θ |X) as a point estimation of the knock
probability θ for ease of use in the spark timing control aspect,
we can determine that if the sample size n of the observations
is sufficiently large, the prior information is then overwhelmed
so that pest = E(θ |X) ≈ nk , which converges to the estimated
value of pMLE in the ML method.
B. Spark Timing Adjustment Rule
The overall control scheme is motivated by the algorithm
in [23], where the knock probability is estimated using the
ML method and the SA adjustment decision is made by the
likelihood ratio test. In this brief, the probability estimation
is modified in the aforementioned Bayesian way with the
decision-making part being retained.

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922 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON CONTROL SYSTEMS TECHNOLOGY, VOL. 29, NO. 2, MARCH 2021

1) Likelihood Ratio Test: Given a target knock probability Algorithm 1 Algorithm for Online SA Control
ptar , a likelihood ratio test is used to determine whether an SA
adjustment is necessary. The adjustment volume is similar to
that in the maximum-likelihood-based method in Section III,
with pMLE replaced by the Bayesian knock probability esti-
mation pest as
k
ptar (1 − ptar )n−k
λ= . (12)
k
pest (1 − pest )n−k
Though α and β are used in deriving pest according to (9), n
and k are still used in (12) instead of n+α+β and k +α so that
the test aims to determine whether pest or ptar fits the current
observation better. If pest is identical to ptar , then λ = 1, which
indicates that the estimated probability is equal to the target
probability; thus, there is no need to adjust the spark timing.
If λ > 1, it indicates that observation X is more consistent
with ptar than pest . Therefore, regardless of whether the actual
knock probability is lower or higher than ptar , no action should
be taken at this point. If λ < 1, it suggests that pest is more
consistent with the observation X than ptar . Therefore, if λ is
lower than a preset threshold, λT < 1, it can be considered
that the knock probability in the engine operating condition
has diverged from the target probability and that spark timing
adjustment is necessary.
2) Overall Control Structure and Algorithm: Based on the
aforementioned Bayesian knock probability estimation method
and the likelihood-ratio-based decision-making method, Algo-
rithm 1 shows the details of the control scheme.
In this algorithm, the beta distribution parameters α0 and
β0 are initialized according to w and ptar and are reinitialized
according to pest after an SA adjustment. w is fixed throughout
the whole algorithm. We provide the initial estimate that the
knock probability is close to ptar , and therefore, α0 and β0 are
initialized as w ∗ ptar and w ∗(1− ptar ), respectively. Regarding
SA adjustment, after each SA adjustment, the engine oper-
ating condition changes, which means that the knock event
follows a new probability distribution and that the previous
knock probability estimation is no longer appropriate. Thus,
a reinitialization step is required for the prior beta distribution, likely to fall asleep when the knock probability is close to Ptar
which is triggered by δ = 0 in line 29. As the change of and the likelihood ratio λ stays above λT for a large number
SA is minor for each adjustment, it can be assumed that the of engine cycles. In this brief, at a cost of larger SA dispersion
knock probability change before and after the SA adjustment in the long term, a buffer contains a maximum of one knock
is also small; therefore, pest before the adjustment is used to event that is chosen to retain the alertness to knock probability
reassign the values of α0 and β0 to provide a favorable starting changes and sudden consecutive knock events.
point for knock probability estimation. To keep the controller
alert to consecutive knock events, a buffer of dynamic knock V. E XPERIMENTAL VALIDATION
signal data length is used, and the reinitialization is triggered Experiments were conducted on the engine test bench
as shown in line 29, under condition “knock == 1.” This described in Section II. To validate the proposed control
means that the buffer stores the knock signal data (i.e., method and to compare it to the ML-based method (see [19,
knockNum and nonknockNum) until the first knock event Algorithm 2]) and the conventional method, the parameter
occurs as {0, 0, . . . , 0, 1}. When a knock event occurs, α0 and settings are shown in Table I. The prior number w of α0 + β0
β0 are updated and reinitialized using pest from line 18, which of the proposed method is set to 100 in all experiments
contains the knock information from both the prior values and to retain controller alertness to the knock events. The SA
the data in the buffer, whereas knockNum and nonknockNum adjustment gains K adv and K ret and the likelihood ratio test
are reset to 0. With this buffering mechanism, the controller threshold λT are chosen to be the same as the parameters
focuses more on the short-term knock signal observations, and used in the ML-based method in [20] and [23]. The SA retard
the knock estimation can be frequently updated when knock gain of the conventional method is set to 1.5 (typical for a
occurs consecutively. In other words, the controller is less production system [23]).

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ZHAO et al.: BETA-DISTRIBUTION-BASED KNOCK PROBABILITY ESTIMATION, CONTROL SCHEME, AND EXPERIMENTAL VALIDATION 923

TABLE I TABLE II
PARAMETERS OF E ACH A PPROACH R ESULTS OF THE P ROPOSED M ETHOD

Fig. 3. Results of the proposed method [beta 1 (top) and beta 4 (bottom),
from Fig. 4].

A. Steady Operating Condition

To validate the proposed control method under the steady
condition, the engine speed was regulated at 1200 r/min by the
dynamometer, and the engine torque was 70 N·m. The initial
SA was set at SA0 = −2◦ for an overly retarded condition and Fig. 4. Results of each approach. Top row: (B) proposed. Middle row: (M)
SA0 = +2◦ for an overly advanced condition. Experiments ML-based. Bottom row: (C) conventional. Left column: retared start. Right
column: advanced start. Knock signals are corresponding to instances 1 and
were repeated three times for each initial condition. Control 4 of each method in the left and right columns, respectively.
started at the 300th cycle (at the end of the gray section)
in all cases and methods. The results of the SA adjustment
TABLE III
of the proposed method are shown in the top row of Fig. 4. R ESULTS OF THE L AST 1500 C YCLES OF E ACH A PPROACH
The SA adjustment and knock occurrence of cases, betas 1
and beta 4, are shown in Fig. 3. In the overly retarded case,
it takes approximately 1500 cycles for the proposed controller
to increase SA to the borderline. In the overly advanced case,
as can be seen in the bottom of Fig. 3, the SA is decreased
close to the borderline. Besides, SA is retarded more rapidly
in the high knock probability region around the 500th cycle
where consecutive knock events occur more often. The results
of the proposed method corresponding to the six instances in method, the SA and the knock events between the 1500th and
the first row of Fig. 4 are shown in Table II, where the SA sta- the 3000th cycle of the six instances are concatenated to form
tistics and the knock probabilities are calculated using the data a 9000-cycle-long data set for the calculation. The results are
between the 1500th and the 3000th cycle. As a comparison, given in Table III.
the conventional approach and the ML-based approach were In terms of reacting time, the conventional method regulates
performed and the parameters are shown in Table I. Due to the the SA the fastest in both the retarded and the advanced
differences in the algorithm designs, there is no completely initial conditions since the SA adjustment occurs in each cycle.
fair way to compare the performance of the three method; From the perspective of the knock probabilities after control,
therefore, the parameters were chosen as the ones used in the conventional method shows the best matching, whereas
[20] and [23] for the proposed and the ML-based methods, the knock probabilities of the proposed and the ML-based
and a typical retard gain for the conventional method [23], methods slightly deviate from the target. Regarding the SA
as shown in Table I. The results of each method are shown dispersion, as shown in Fig. 4 and Table III, the conventional
in Fig. 4. Regarding the steady-state statistics, for each control method adjusts SA most frequently with large gains and results

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924 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON CONTROL SYSTEMS TECHNOLOGY, VOL. 29, NO. 2, MARCH 2021

in the largest SA dispersion. With the same the SA adjust

gains and the threshold for the likelihood ratio test, the SA of
the ML-based method changes more frequently near the SA
borderline with a larger standard deviation than that of the
proposed method.

B. Transient Operating Condition

A tip-in/tip-out experiment was also performed to vali-
date the proposed controller under transient conditions. For
the experimental condition, the engine speed was fixed at
1200 r/min. Controller was enabled at the first cycle with
an initial operating condition as TA = 9.4◦ and SA = 11◦
BTDC, where the SA was the 1% knock borderline SA under
this condition. At the 1000th and the 4000th cycle, the TA was
increased from 9.4◦ (70 N·m) to 10.4◦ (75 N·m) to simulate
a tip-in event; at the 200th cycle, the TA was decreased Fig. 5. Tip-in/tip-out transient response of the proposed method (knock
from 10.4◦ (75 N·m) back to 9.4◦ (70 N·m) to simulate a signals are corresponding to instance 1). Top: SA command. Bottom: TA
sensor read.
tip-out event. The experiment was repeated three times and
the results are shown in Fig. 5, where the knock signal is
corresponding to Instance 1. The horizontal dashed line in
the top plot is the 1% knock probability SA borderline (11◦
BTDC) at T A = 9.4◦ , and the horizontal solid line is the SA
borderline (8.5◦ BTDC) at T A = 10.4◦ . As shown in Fig. 5,
since the initial SA is set to the borderline, the SA remains
close to the borderline in the first 1000 cycles. Once a tip-
in manipulation occurs at the 1000th cycle, the SA is rapidly
retarded at first to reduce knock probability and is finely tuned
near the borderline. For the tip-out event at the 2000th cycle,
the controller takes approximately 200 cycles to determine
that the knock probability is lower than the target and starts
to increase SA toward the upper borderline. When another
tip-in manipulation occurs at the 4000th cycle, the controller
reacts to the change of knock probability within 50 cycles and
reverses the SA adjustment direction to retard SA back to the
lower borderline. Theoretically, the Bayesian estimation will Fig. 6. Instance 1 in Fig. 5 at the second tip-in manipulation.
cause a bias to the prior condition and delay the adjustment.
In the proposed algorithm, α0 and β0 are repetitively reinitial-
ized upon knock events (line 30 in Algorithm 1); therefore, short-term fast reaction to knock events, i.e., a buffer with
with a low value w = 100 for the prior, the bias to the low- higher maximum knock event count limits can contribute to
knock-probability prior condition will be eliminated quickly a more accurate long-term knock probability estimation and a
when knock occurs frequently. Fig. 6 shows the SA adjustment lower SA dispersion but delays the controller reaction to knock
at the second tip-in manipulation of Instance 1 in Fig. 5. probability changes. With a limited number of experiments,
The SA adjustment does not occur immediately after the tip- it is not easy to claim a more general conclusion in a statistical
in manipulation since the SA controller does not detect the sense, but the proposed method exhibits a promising balance
throttle manipulation explicitly. When two knock events occur between the response time and the steady-state behavior.
in a short period after the 4010th cycle, the SA is retarded. Regarding the overall control algorithm, the robustness and
Therefore, though the Bayesian estimation inevitably delays how different gain and likelihood threshold values can affect
the response, the controller still start to retard the SA when the SA adjustment require further analysis. The minimum SA
knock events occur frequently. adjustment is limited to K adv ∗ (1 − λT ) or K ret ∗ (1 − λT ),
as shown in lines 22 and 24 in Algorithm 1. With the use of the
VI. D ISCUSSION CI length, the adjustments can be smaller, but this approach
In the proposed control method, the beta parameters are does not guarantee that the SA will be regulated exactly to
reinitialized whenever a knock event occurs so that the con- the borderline; instead, the resultant SA may fluctuate near
troller is forced to focus more on short-term knock regulation the borderline.
and can react to sudden consecutive knock events more Moreover, since the Bayesian method is used in the prob-
quickly. It is, however, worth noting that there exists an ability estimation step, better prior distributions can lead to
inevitable tradeoff between the long-term SA stability and better control results. In the proposed algorithm, the prior

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ZHAO et al.: BETA-DISTRIBUTION-BASED KNOCK PROBABILITY ESTIMATION, CONTROL SCHEME, AND EXPERIMENTAL VALIDATION
estimation is based on the previously estimated knock prob-
ability, and the only available input to the controller is the
binary knock signal; therefore, the controller does not directly
respond to the changes of other factors, i.e., fuel, air, tempera-
ture, speed, and load, until the changes have affected the binary
knock probability. Thus, if these parameters are incorporated
within the prior information to provide a better prior beta
distribution, it is reasonable to believe that the responding
speed of the control can be improved.
VII. C ONCLUSION
In this brief, a beta-distribution-based statistical knock
probability estimation and control approach for SI engines
is presented. The i.i.d. property of binarized knock events
is first experimentally validated. Based on the i.i.d. property,
the knock probability is presented by a beta distribution,
the estimation of which is updated online under Bayes’ rule.
To control the knock probability, the estimated probability and
likelihood ratio test are used along with the CI of the beta
distribution of the probability estimation as one of the gains
for SA adjustment. The proposed approach is implemented
and validated on a full-scale test bench equipped with a
production SI gasoline engine. The results of the validation
under steady-state operating conditions show that the proposed
approach is capable of regulating the knock probability to a
target value both from overly retarded and overly advanced
spark timing initial conditions. Moreover, compared to the
conventional and ML-based methods, the proposed method
exhibits less SA dispersion after the knock probability has
converged to the target. In future work, more experiments
will be performed to analyze the controller performance under
various operating conditions and driving scenarios. It is worth
noting that this brief is an extension of the previous research
works on knock control [24], [25], [27] that the Bayesian
method is intensively used in both the knock probability esti-
mation and the online control and presents the latest research
results.
ACKNOWLEDGMENT
The authors would like to thank Toyota Motor Corporation,
Japan, for providing laboratory equipment.
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