Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Bolt, Maxwell, Alberts, Alex, Desai, Akash S., Meckl, Peter, Bilionis, Ilias
Format: Preprint
Published: 2026
Subjects:
Online Access:https://arxiv.org/abs/2603.12356
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
_version_ 1866918384680042496
author Bolt, Maxwell
Alberts, Alex
Desai, Akash S.
Meckl, Peter
Bilionis, Ilias
author_facet Bolt, Maxwell
Alberts, Alex
Desai, Akash S.
Meckl, Peter
Bilionis, Ilias
contents Diesel engine particulate matter (PM) is one of the most challenging emission constituents to predict. As engines become cleaner and emissions levels drop, manufacturers need reliable methods to quantify the PM generated by production engines. Due to the inaccuracy of commercial-grade sensors, they turn to predictive models to accurately estimate PM. In practice, this requires a computationally inexpensive model that provides PM estimates with calibrated uncertainty. Complex, multiscale physics make mechanistic models intractable and traditional data-driven methods struggle in transient drive cycles due to the stochastic nature of PM generation. Leveraging recent innovations in PM measurement technology, we introduce a novel PM model based on the Ornstein-Uhlenbeck (OU) process. The OU process is a mean-reverting stochastic process commonly used in financial modeling, now being explored for engineering applications, and can be described as a stochastic differential equation (SDE). We modify the OU process by parameterizing the terms of the SDE as functions of the engine state, which are then fit with a maximum likelihood estimate. In a synthetic example, we verify the ability of our model to learn a time-varying, parametrized OU process. We then train the model using real experimental data designed to dynamically cover the engine operating space and test the trained model on EPA-regulated drive cycles. For most drive cycles, we find the method accurately predicts cumulative output of PM across time.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2603_12356
institution arXiv
publishDate 2026
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Modeling diesel output particulate matter as the Ornstein-Uhlenbeck process
Bolt, Maxwell
Alberts, Alex
Desai, Akash S.
Meckl, Peter
Bilionis, Ilias
Applications
Diesel engine particulate matter (PM) is one of the most challenging emission constituents to predict. As engines become cleaner and emissions levels drop, manufacturers need reliable methods to quantify the PM generated by production engines. Due to the inaccuracy of commercial-grade sensors, they turn to predictive models to accurately estimate PM. In practice, this requires a computationally inexpensive model that provides PM estimates with calibrated uncertainty. Complex, multiscale physics make mechanistic models intractable and traditional data-driven methods struggle in transient drive cycles due to the stochastic nature of PM generation. Leveraging recent innovations in PM measurement technology, we introduce a novel PM model based on the Ornstein-Uhlenbeck (OU) process. The OU process is a mean-reverting stochastic process commonly used in financial modeling, now being explored for engineering applications, and can be described as a stochastic differential equation (SDE). We modify the OU process by parameterizing the terms of the SDE as functions of the engine state, which are then fit with a maximum likelihood estimate. In a synthetic example, we verify the ability of our model to learn a time-varying, parametrized OU process. We then train the model using real experimental data designed to dynamically cover the engine operating space and test the trained model on EPA-regulated drive cycles. For most drive cycles, we find the method accurately predicts cumulative output of PM across time.
title Modeling diesel output particulate matter as the Ornstein-Uhlenbeck process
topic Applications
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2603.12356