Engine Controller System and Method Employing High Speed Angular Position Sensor
First Claim
1. A system for controlling a vehicle system, comprising:
- a programmable controller having at least two inputs and at least one output;
a first sensor operable to apply a voltage level to a first one of said at least two inputs, the voltage level varying sinusoidally with the angular position of a rotating component of the vehicle system;
a second sensor operable to provide a signal to a second of said at least two inputs indicating the time at which the controller is to determine the angular position of the rotating component and wherein, in response to the signal from the second sensor, the controller determines the angular position of the rotating component represented by the voltage level at the first of said at least two inputs and, in accordance with a control program the controller is executing, the controller provides an appropriate output control signal to the vehicle system on said at least one output.
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Abstract
A control system and method for controlling a vehicle system, such as an engine, is taught. The controller uses the angular position of a rotating component, and in particular the angular phase of the rotating component to another rotating component, as an input. The input is determined with high resolution, yet is determined in a computationally efficient manner to reduce the amount of computation which must be performed by the controller. By producing a high resolution result in a computationally efficient manner, the result can be available to the controller almost immediately after the measurement is taken and the cost of controller can be less than it otherwise would be. In some embodiments, the system and method can also accurately determine the static angular position of one or more rotating members. The system and method are believed to be particularly suitable for determine the angular phasor between one or more camshafts and the crankshaft of an engine.
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Citations
16 Claims
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1. A system for controlling a vehicle system, comprising:
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a programmable controller having at least two inputs and at least one output;
a first sensor operable to apply a voltage level to a first one of said at least two inputs, the voltage level varying sinusoidally with the angular position of a rotating component of the vehicle system;
a second sensor operable to provide a signal to a second of said at least two inputs indicating the time at which the controller is to determine the angular position of the rotating component and wherein, in response to the signal from the second sensor, the controller determines the angular position of the rotating component represented by the voltage level at the first of said at least two inputs and, in accordance with a control program the controller is executing, the controller provides an appropriate output control signal to the vehicle system on said at least one output. - View Dependent Claims (2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13)
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14. A method of controlling the operation of a vehicle system with a determined angular position of a first rotating component in the vehicle system as an input to the control process, comprising the steps of:
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at a time of interest, receiving from a sensor a voltage whose level varies sinusoidally with the angular position of the first rotating component;
normalizing and scaling the received voltage such that the normalized and scaled received voltage level is within a range of possible index values of an array of elements storing pre-computed angular position values;
retrieving the pre-computed angular position value stored in the array element indicated by the index value corresponding to the normalized and scaled received voltage value; and
using the retrieved pre-computed angular position value as an input to control the vehicle system. - View Dependent Claims (15, 16)
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Specification