METHOD AND APPARATUS TO DETERMINE A PREFERRED OPERATING POINT FOR AN ENGINE OF A POWERTRAIN SYSTEM USING AN ITERATIVE SEARCH

A method to determine a preferred operating point for an internal combustion engine includes determining a current set of candidate operating points for a current search iteration. The method further includes iteratively determining an operating cost for operating the internal combustion engine at each candidate operating point of the current search iteration, and determining the preferred operating point for operating the internal combustion engine after a predetermined number of search iterations.