Patent ID: 6286365
Filing Date: 2001-09-11
Classification: F02D,H03M

Abstract:
An emergency method for determining segment times required for controlling an internal combustion engine, wherein said internal combustion engine includes a camshaft (15); a transducer disk (16) fixed on said camshaft and provided with a plurality of equal-spaced markings; a camshaft sensor (21) for detecting said equal-spaced markings on the transducer disk (16); a crankshaft (11), another transducer disk (11) fixed to said crankshaft and provided with markings spaced apart from each other on said another transducer disk (11) and a crankshaft sensor (20) for detecting said markings spaced apart from each other on the another transducer disk (11), said method comprising the steps of:a) testing to determine if a crankshaft sensor signal is being generated by said crankshaft sensor (20);b) only if said crankshaft sensor signal is not detected during the testing of step a), measuring respective segment times between pairs of said equally-spaced markings on said transducer disk (16) fixed to said camshaft by means of said camshaft sensor (21);c) triggering fuel injection events and thus combustion events in said internal combustion engine in order to trip acceleration events at a substantially constant rotation speed of said camshaft (15);d) calculating, in response to the triggering of step c), a resulting acceleration quotient for a current one of said segment times, said acceleration quotient equaling said current one of said segment times divided by a formerly measured one of said segment times; ande) correcting a following one of said segment times obtained during the measuring by means of said acceleration quotient for said current one of said segment times;whereby reliable starting and continued operation of the internal combustion engine are provided without a crankshaft signal.