Crank Angle Estimation with Kalman Filter for Ignition Control of a Scooter Engine

For a conventional scooter engine, not only the crankshaft position estimation is insufficient based on the one-tooth crankshaft wheel, but also the speed measurement might be contaminated by sensor noise easily. The authors propose a technique using Kalman filter to estimate crankshaft position and engine speed for digital ignition control of a scooter engine. A 125cc engine model, which is verified by the experimental data of the target engine, will be used to design the Kalman filter. A simulation model, which consists of nonlinear engine dynamics, powertrain dynamics, tire dynamics, and pitch plane dynamics, is used to evaluate the performance of proposed estimation algorithm with different tooth numbers of crankshaft wheel and various noise conditions.