Caterpillar Inc.

Ioan Paduret

James David Siegle

Morteza Rezaei

William E Hoban, Jr

William Hoban

An engine ignition system for a spark-ignited engine includes a sparkplug and a control system having primary ignition circuitry, secondary ignition circuitry coupled with electrodes of the sparkplug, and sensing circuitry. A control device determines a timing of spark production based on a pattern of varying of an electrical property in the primary ignition circuitry. An inflection point in a sensed current signal may be detected to determine the timing.

Sparkplug health determination in engine ignition system

A system for detecting valve seating in a valve system such as a fuel admission valve system includes seat detection circuitry coupled with a low-side driver circuit in solenoid actuator circuitry for the valve system. The seat detection circuitry includes a voltage probe for sensing voltage in the solenoid actuator circuitry, delay circuitry, and a comparator coupled with the delay circuitry and the voltage probe and having an output dependent upon change in the sensed voltage over time. A timing of voltage changes is observed to enable valve seating detection.

System and method for valve seating detection

An engine control module (ECM) having a plurality of driver banks is provided. Each of the driver banks is configured to drive a plurality of combustion control elements. The driver banks include two low side driver circuits and a high side driver circuit, the high side driver circuit in each of the plurality of driver banks being shared pairwise by two combustion control elements. Each one of said at least two low side driver circuits is respectively associated with the two combustion control elements. The ECM includes a field programmable gate array (FPGA) coupled to the plurality of driver banks and configured to provide firing signals to at least twelve high side driver circuits to simultaneously drive at least twelve combustion control elements respectively coupled to the at least twelve high side driver circuits.

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Peoria, IL, United States of America

Ioan Paduret