A New Method to Convert Crankshaft Position Sensor (CPS) Signals into Angular Acceleration for Engine Combustion Evaluation

With ever-increasing oil and gasoline prices, automotive manufacturers are striving to improve fuel economy. There are many factors that affect vehicle fuel consumption, such as engine size, vehicle weight, driving habits, and more. For a particular vehicle, engine combustion quality is one of the most important factors that affect fuel economy. Engine combustion quality also directly affects engine emissions, vehicle drivability, and vehicle NVH. Automotive manufacturers have been using different technologies to control engine combustion quality, such as using low cost pressure transducers to measure and control engine combustion in real time. In this paper, the authors have proposed a method that could directly use the Crank Position Sensor (CPS) signal to measure engine combustion quality. This method could be adopted in the engine control module to achieve real time combustion quality control, as well as used as a tool for routine engine combustion auditing at assembly plants or in the field.