General Electric Company

Ahmed Esa Sheikh

Bo Nilson Almstedt

Suresh Baddam Reddy

Andreas Peterson

Thomas Dovheim

Lennart Rudander

Mikael Thorell

Samraj Jabez Dhinagar

Ajith Kuttannair Kumar

Wolfgang Daum

Paul Lloyd Flynn

Larry Gene Anderson

Kirk Heywood

The invention relates to a system and method for detecting a closing of a solenoid. The system includes a capacitive charge circuit electrically coupled to the solenoid. The capacitive charge circuit conditions the current flow through the solenoid to increase the current in response to the closing of the solenoid. The invention also relates to a system and method that includes detecting a current through the solenoid and determining a current slope characteristic. The current slope characteristic is a function of the current and time. The method also includes conditioning an electrical characteristic of the solenoid such that the conditioning is in response to a current slope parameter. The current slope parameter defines a change in the current after removal of an electrical charge to the solenoid.

Apparatus and method for accurate detection of locomotive fuel injection pump solenoid closure

Disclosed herein are methods of generating a virtual crankshaft positioning stream of signal pulses that is derived from one or more series of actual crank signals. The virtual stream is useful for monitoring crankshaft positioning and is able to persist despite electromagnetic disturbances in the series of actual crank signals.

Disturbance-resistant bumpless crankshaft position sensing

Disclosed herein are methods of cranking and/or operating an engine that eliminates the need for use of a cam sensor. The methods implemented with internal combustion engine comprising a plurality of cylinders whose firing sequence occurs over two revolutions of a crankshaft with a first set of cylinders comprising a power stroke during the first crankshaft revolution and a second set of cylinders comprising the power stroke of a second crankshaft revolution. The methods involve manipulating fuel injection command signals to occur out of their proper sequence, monitoring and engine indicator responsive to firing and non-firing of cylinders, and identifying correct engine phase based on fluctuations in the engine indicator. Also disclosed herein are software product embodiments comprising program code modules that cause a engine control unit to manipulate the generation of fuel injection command signals to take place outside their correct sequence.

Engine operation without cam sensor

A system () and method of determining fuel demands of a locomotive engine () based upon engine speed and power produced by the engine at a given time, so to optimize the engine's power output for a load while reducing engine emissions. The engine control architecture comprises three interrelated control loops (). A primary feedback control loop () employs integral type control with gain scheduling to regulate engine speed to commanded slew rated based upon the locomotive's operator commands. A second control loop () provides an active, feed forward or predictive control consisting of a plurality of correction functions each utilizing a Taylor series having coefficients for each term in the series, the coefficients being modified to adapt the system to the engine with which it is used. A control third loop () optimizes reference speed slew rates and engine load rates by providing feedback of nominal engine fuel requirements or fuel demand, corrections to fuel demand based upon outputs from the second control loop, speed error values, and ambient conditions.

Diesel engine control system with optimized fuel delivery

Disclosed herein are methods of generating an active crank series of signals that is derived from at least two series of signals, wherein one or both of the series of signals have been modulated to produce two series of signals that resemble each other. Also disclosed herein is a crankshaft positioning system for determining the rotational position of a crankshaft of an engine that utilizes at least two crank angle sensorsand. The signal information from the two crank angle sensorsandis processed by a signal processorsuch that the series of signalsfrom the second crank angle sensoremulates the series of signalsfrom the first crank angle processor. The signal processor generates an active crank series of signalsbased on the two series of signals. The active crank series of signalsis sent to an engine control processorwhich directs the injection and/or ignition of fuel into cylinders of an engine. According to the system exemplified herein, the active crank series of signalssent to the engine control processoris not disrupted despite failure of one of the crank angle sensors. These and other embodiments are disclosed.

Growing community of inventors

Erie, PA, United States of America

Ahmed Esa Sheikh