Gm Global Technolgoy Operations, Inc.

Gennaro Merlino

Francesco Concetto Pesce

Stefano Nieddu

Giuseppe Conte

Roberto Romanato

Angelo Cancellieri

Umberto Ferrara

Salvatore Sannino

Jaime Andres Cespedes Garcia

Alessandro Forina

Ezio Spessa

Roberto Finesso

Giancarlo Cifali

Methods and systems are provided for controlling fuel injections by a fuel injector in a cylinder of an internal combustion engine. First and second fuel injections are applied in each cycle of a piston in the cylinder. First and second electronic control signals are applied to the fuel injector to generate first and second fuel injections by the fuel injector during a first cycle of the piston. A hydraulic fusion state of the generated first and second fuel injections is determined. A parameter of the applied first and second electronic control signals is adjusted in response to determining the hydraulic fusion state and applied to the fuel injector to generate first and second fuel injections by the fuel injector during a second cycle of the piston subsequent to the first cycle.

Method and system for controlling injections by fuel injectors

A fuel injection control system is usable with an engine, e.g., a diesel engine of a mild hybrid electric vehicle. The control system includes an auxiliary battery, a high-voltage (HV) battery, e.g., 48 VDC, a switching circuit with first and second switching pairs, a controller, and a fuel injector system. The controller opens and closes the switches to command an electrical current from the auxiliary or HV battery according to a predetermined injector current profile. The fuel injector system has one or more control solenoids. Windings of the solenoids are electrically connectable to the HV battery during a boost phase of the profile via opening of the first switching pair and closing of the second switching pair, and to the auxiliary battery during peak, by-pass, hold, and end-of-injection phases of the profile via closing of the first switching pair and opening of the second switching pair.

Mild hybrid powertrain with simplified fuel injector boost

An automotive internal combustion engine combusts an air/fuel mixture to generate a drive torque. An engine control unit (ECU) determines a torque request to output a fuel request signal indicative of an amount of the fuel to inject into a cylinder of the engine. The ECU includes neural network controller installed with a neural network to generate a fuel setpoint signal based on the torque request and to define a combustion model of the engine. The neural network generates a start of injection (SOI) signal indicating a start time at which to inject the fuel based a crankshaft angle. The ECU further outputs the fuel request signal based on the fuel setpoint and the SOI. A fuel injector injects the fuel into the cylinder based on the fuel request signal to generate the drive torque indicated by the torque request.

Engine control system including feed-forward neural network controller

A method is disclosed for operating an automotive system having an internal combustion engine equipped with an exhaust gas aftertreatment system including a Lean NOTrap (LNT) upstream of a Selective Catalytic Reduction washcoated particulate filter (SCRF). A LNT inlet temperature is monitored. A parameter representative of a quantity of NOstored in the LNT is also monitored. A map correlating the LNT inlet temperature and the quantity of NOstored in the LNT is used to estimate an ammonia quantity produced during a LNT regeneration. A LNT regeneration is performed, if the estimated ammonia quantity is greater than a threshold value thereof.

Method of operating an automotive system

A method of operating an aftertreatment system of an internal combustion engine having a lean nitrogen-oxides trap and a reductant storage device placed downstream of the lean nitrogen-oxides trap is disclosed. A regeneration of the lean nitrogen-oxides trap is performed. During the regeneration, a reductant concentration between the lean nitrogen-oxides trap and the reductant storage device is measured. An amount of reductant produced by the nitrogen-oxides trap is calculated on the basis of the measured concentration. The amount of reductant produced may be used to stop regeneration of the LNT if this amount reaches the maximum available storage capacity, or to trigger a test of the proper functioning of the reductant storage device if there is at least a minimum amount of reductant available, or to switch to another operation mode of the reductant storage device and/or the LNT, in particular if this amount is larger than a threshold value.

Method of operating an aftertreatment system of an internal combustion engine

A control method is provided for using a feed forward technique. The method includes, but is not limited to using a setpoint value of a controlled variable to calculate a compensation of the closed loop static error, summing said contribution to the setpoint value, operating an estimation of the closed loop error to obtain a feed forward contribution.

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Turin, Italy

Gennaro Merlino