Lucas Industries Public Limited Company

David Nutton

David G Williams

Adrian Leslie Trace

David K Bryers

Brian Graham Nicholson

An engine misfire detector comprises an opto-electric sensor for monitoring light produced by combustion inside a cylinder. The sensor is connected to a variable gain amplifier having a gain control circuit for controlling the amplifier gain. The output of the gain control circuit is compared with a threshold in a comparator to provide a misfire detection signal. The transfer function of the gain control circuit includes an integral term.

Misfire detection

A control system for an internal combustion engine has an ignition timing control device and a combustion duration control device such as a mixture controller. Sensors detect the start and end of combustion which are compared with a look-up table of target values for the engine speed and load to provide error signals. The processed error signals provide corrections which are added to base values from look-up tables of ignition timing and mixture and supplied to the control devices so as to tend to eliminate the error signals, so that the engine runs with its designed start of combustion and combustion duration values.

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Solihull, United Kingdom

David Nutton