ENGINE MONITORING

• US 20100179721A1
• Filed: 05/30/2008
• Published: 07/15/2010
• Est. Priority Date: 06/01/2007
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Dasan Invest Co., Ltd. (Min-Woo Nam)
• Original Assignee: Tantalum Innovations Ltd.
• Inventors: Willard, Alexander Edward, Hatiris, Emmanouil
• Granted Patent: US 8,364,339 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 701/33
• CPC Class Codes: G07C 5/085 using electronic data carriers

Abstract

A method and device for creating an accurate simulation or model of the performance of a vehicle or an internal combustion engine in accordance with the invention comprises accessing the engine on-board diagnostic port (OBD), reading data from the desired industry standard parameter indicators (PID), using these data to produce a basic simulation of the engine operating characteristics, accessing and reading non-industry standard PIDs and using the output from the basic simulation in order to identify the non-industry standard PIDs with a high degree of certainty. As it may not be possible to identify some or all of the required non-industry standard PIDs or their scale due to timing delays or coding, an additional feature of the invention is to prompt a driver of a vehicle to drive the vehicle in a certain way or to perform a certain operation of the engine in order to trigger an event which will assist in identifying the missing non-industry standard PID(s) or will increase the degree of correlation or certainty in identifying the function or the scale of the said non-industry standard PID.

Claims

1. A vehicle monitoring device comprising a processor programmed to simulate the operation of an internal combustion engine or vehicle both at a basic level and a precise or accurate level, an input connection to the processor adapted to connect to the on board diagnostics port (OBD) of the engine, means for interrogating the OBD to acquire data from signals identified by industry—

standard parameter indicators (PID) as required for the processor to be able to create and run a basic model of the engine or vehicle operation, and means for interrogating the OBD in order to acquire in real time the available signals identified by non-industry standard PIDs, and processing means for analysing and comparing the signals identified by the non-industry standard PIDs with signals obtained or derived from the basic model of engine operation in order to identify the non-industry standard PIDs with a degree of confidence and to permit their signals to be used to produce accurate simulation of the engine or vehicle operation.

2. A device as claimed in claim 1 which is programmed to prompt a driver of a vehicle equipped with the device to drive the vehicle in a certain way or to perform a certain operation of the engine or vehicle in order to trigger an event which will assist in identifying a certain non-industry standard PID or will increase the degree of correlation or certainty in identifying the function or the scale of the non-industry standard PID.

3. A device as claimed in claim 1 which is programmed to correlate a number of identified desired non-industry standard PIDs with available industry standard PIDs in order to construct an accurate model of the operation of the vehicle and/or its engine.

4. A device as claimed in claim 3 in which the signals identified by the non-industry standard PIDs to the accurate model are used to generate coefficients to populate an array with reference to the industry standard PID inputs so that the accurate coefficients can be obtained or deduced in real time from the signals from the industry standard PIDs if or when non-industry standard PID inputs are not available or too delayed to be of use.

5. A device as claimed in claim 4 which is programmed to prompt a driver of a vehicle equipped with the device to drive the vehicle in a certain way or to perform a certain operation of the engine in order to trigger an event which will permit missing data in the array to be collected to complete the array.

6. A device as claimed in claim 1 which is provided with a plug for connection to the vehicle OBD port, and a port that replicates the vehicle OBD port so that servicing and maintenance of the vehicle can be carried out through the replicated port without removing the device.

7. A device as claimed in claim 1 which is programmed to monitor some or all of the non-industry standard PIDs constantly or intermittently in order to permit accuracy of the accurate model and/or the array to be maintained or updated.

8. A device as claimed in claim 1 which is programmed to interrogate the vehicle or engine network controller to retrieve certain signals or parameters to enable it to calculate, deduce or output fuel use directly

9. A device as claimed in claim 1 which is programmed to interrogate the vehicle or engine network controller to retrieve certain parameters to enable it to create an accurate model of the vehicle or engine operation whence accurate data can be calculated or deduced relating to fuel consumption and/or emissions.

10. A device as claimed in claim 4 in which the data array is preprogrammed with known non-industry standard PID(s) or that these data are extracted from other vehicle monitoring devices and transferred to array.

11. A device as claimed in claim 1 in which the device stores speed/time data enabling acceleration and braking rates to be calculated or retrieved.

12. A device as claimed in claim 1 in which the device is programmed to identify the PID relating to arming of the vehicle'"'"'s air bags or safety systems and records or stores each event.

13. A device as claimed in claim 1 in which the device is self-standing and arranged for use as a universal engine testing device and programmed to recognise various vehicles and store their non-industry standard PIDs for reference and future use.

14. A method for creating an accurate simulation or model of the performance of an internal combustion engine comprising the steps of:

accessing an on-board diagnostic port (OBD) for the engine,

reading, from the OBD port, data from the desired industry standard parameter indicators (PID),

using the read data to produce a basic simulation of engine or vehicle operation,

accessing and reading signals, from the OBD port, from non-industry standard PID'"'"'s, and

using data from the basic simulation to identify the non-industry standard PID'"'"'s that are required to run the accurate simulation of the engine or vehicle operation.

15. A method as claimed in claim 14 in which a driver of a vehicle is prompted to drive the vehicle in a certain way or to perform a certain operation of the engine in order to trigger an event which will assist in identifying a certain non-industry standard PID or will increase the degree of correlation or certainty in identifying the function or the scale of the non-industry standard PID.

16. A method as claimed in claim 14 in which data from the identified non-industry standard PID'"'"'s are used to run the accurate simulation of the engine.

17. A method as claimed in claim 14 in which data from the required PID'"'"'s are used to populate an array which can be used subsequently to produce the accurate simulation of the engine performance in real time by using outputs partly or solely from the industry standard PID'"'"'s.

18. A method as claimed in claim 17 in which a driver of a vehicle equipped with the device is prompted to drive the vehicle in a certain way or to perform a certain operation of the engine in order to trigger an event which will permit missing data in the array to be collected to complete the array.

19. A method as claimed in claim 14 in which the device continuously or intermittently interrogates some or all of the non-industry standard PIDs to update their values as the vehicle operating conditions change over time.