Model-based within-a-cycle estimation of rate shaping for a piezoelectric fuel injector

Piezoelectric fuel injectors provide a means to reduce fuel consumption, noise and emissions in modern IC engines. This paper summarizes an effort resulting in within-a-cycle estimation of injected fuel flow rate for “rate shaped” injection profiles. A reduced order model is derived by simplifying a physically based, experimentally validated simulation model. A within-a-cycle FPGA-based estimation algorithm is derived from the model and experimentally demonstrated at a “loop time” of 6μs.