The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document.
The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge covers the following: Patent number, Date patent was issued, Date patent was filed, Title of the patent, Applicant, Inventor, Assignee, Attorney firm, Primary examiner, Assistant examiner, CPCs, and Abstract. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document (in Adobe Acrobat format, aka pdf). To download or print any patent click here.
Patent No.:
Date of Patent:
Jul. 02, 2002
Filed:
Mar. 22, 2001
Applicant:
Inventors:
Assignee:
NGK Spark Plug Co., Ltd., Nagoya, JP;
Attorney:
Primary Examiner:
Int. Cl.
CPC ...
F23Q 7/00 ;
U.S. Cl.
CPC ...
F23Q 7/00 ;
Abstract
In a glow plug controller, a glow plug fixed to an engine comprises a heater and a ceramic substrate having an exposed portion which is exposed to the interior of a combustion chamber A glow plug control apparatus causes ECU to control the energization of the heater of the glow plug to keep the surface temperature Ts of the exposed portion to not lower than 500° C. Further, ionic current Ii is measured using the glow plug Switches and switch from the energization of the glow plug to the detection of ionic current or vice versa in response to a command signal from ECU