An Integrated Engine Control Unit for a Spark Ignited Internal Combustion Engine

Abstract

A stepping valve system has been proposed before and proved to be feasible. The stepping valve move perpendicular to the piston, thereby avoiding piston-valve collisions associated with interference engines. In this study, the proposed Stepping Valve Control Unit, SVCU, was integrated with the conventional Engine Control Unit, ECU, of a simple SI engine. The resulting Integrated Engine Control Unit, IECU, as it is called, simplified the design of the ECU. The integration involved combining the basic fuel injector and sparking controls with the SVCU. The camshaft and crankshaft sensors were replaced by a Piston Direction Sensor, PDS. The PDS is an optical sensor, which works in conjunction with a gray coded trigger wheel to relay information to the IECU. The IECU was simulated using Quartus II design software. The hardware implementation of the IECU was done using EPM7128SL FPGA contained within the UP1 Altera Development Board. The behavior of the IECU was expected.