Efficient piecewise-affine coupled-system feed-forward control of a nonlinear elastomer coupling ⁎ ⁎This paper has been partially funded by Austrian Research Promotion (FFG) project 850737

For a simplified elastic drive train with nonlinear coupling torque, this paper proposes an efficient model of the coupled system model in time-discrete form. It is obtained from piecewise-exact discretization of the continuous-time system model and allows precise, efficient feed-forward control in real time. The high model accuracy is validated in a hardware-in-the-loop setting on a laboratory test rig for elastomer couplings. The model-based control law allows safe operation of the test rig across the system’s resonance range.