Delphi Technologies, Inc.

Esau Aguinaga

Yingjie Lin

Mark A Shost

Warren Baxter Nicholson

Daniel J Moreno

Cecilia Hernandez

Ramon A Sanchez

Manuel S Sanchez

Norberto Hernandez

Jesus Carmona

A sensing apparatus for determining a property of a fuel such as a gasoline and ethanol blend known as flex fuel includes an acetal plastic tube with an inlet, an outlet and a fuel passage in between. One property of the fuel is a dielectric constant. A pair of sensing plates are placed on opposite sides of the tube leaving the fuel passage unobstructed. A processing circuit on a printed circuit board (PCB) is located near to and is connected with the sensing plates. The circuit applies an excitation signal, senses a capacitance, and generates an output signal indicative of a property of the fuel. The sensed capacitance will increase with increasing concentration of ethanol in the fuel flowing through the passage. A shield for reducing EMI surrounds and encloses the sensing plates and the PCB. An interface connector allows the sensing apparatus to output the capacitance indicative signal to an engine controller or the like.

Fuel sensor

A method and apparatus for controlling a solenoid-actuated charcoal canister purge valve to control the flow of purge fuel that is supplied via the purge valve to a cylinder of an internal combustion engine. The method includes generating a preselected input duty cycle for use in energizing the solenoid-actuated purge valve that is registered by a microcontroller. The solenoid-actuated purge valve is energized using the input duty cycle to generate an output duty cycle from a current driver in operable communication with the microcontroller. The output duty cycle dictates the quantity of purge fuel flow to the cylinder by controlling the active period of energizing the solenoid. A feedback voltage (Vfb) from the solenoid-actuated purge valve is measured, wherein the feedback voltage (Vfb) corresponds to a feedback duty cycle (DCfb). The microcontroller calculates an error between the input duty cycle (Idc) and the feedback duty cycle (DCfb) and generates a compensated output duty cycle to the current driver based on the error calculated to compensate any deviation. The compensated output duty cycle compensates for any deviation from a linear relationship between the input duty cycle (Idc) and feedback voltage (Vfb), wherein Vfb corresponds to a flow of purge fuel.

Control routine for a current driver

A method for compensating signals from an absolute angular position sensor assembly is used in conjunction with an absolute angular position sensor assembly having an input gear coupled to a rotating shaft. The input gear is meshed with an output gear that rotates as the input gear and the shaft rotate. The sensor assembly includes an input gear sensor and an output gear sensor placed in proximity to the input gear and output gear, respectively. The gears are configured so as to be sensed by the sensors. The method includes determining an angular position compensation value that is used to adjust an absolute position of the input gear, which in turn is used to compute the absolute position of the rotating shaft. The angular position compensation value for the revolution N&plus;1 is determined as APCV &equals;(APRS &minus;AAPIG )/&agr;&plus;APCV , wherein APCV is the angular position compensation value for the revolution N&plus;1, APRS is the angular position of the rotating shaft for the revolution N, AAPIG is the adjusted angular position of the input gear for the revolution N, &agr; is a compensation factor that is greater than one, and APCV is angular position compensation value for the revolution N.

Method for compensating signals from an absolute angular position sensor assembly

A method for compensating the output of an angular position sensor assembly includes placing a first magnetic field sensor such that it is oriented ninety degrees from a second magnetic field sensor. A magnet is placed so that it is equidistant from the sensors. The magnet is rotated, and as it rotates, the signals output by the sensors are sinusoidal waves that are out of phase with each other by ninety degrees (90&deg;). Accordingly, the signals can be squared and summed to determined a temperature compensation signal.

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Chihuahua, Mexico

Esau Aguinaga