Patent ID: 6577945
Filing Date: 2003-06-10
Classification: G01M

Abstract:
A device for cylinders specific determination of spark failures of a reciprocating engine, comprising:a gear ring arrangement attached to a crankshaft of said engine, said gear ring including a plurality of teeth; sensing means in proximity to said gear ring for measuring dynamic behavior of the crankshaft by measuring time between passing of two neighboring teeth of said plurality of teeth and providing individual output signals allocated to a cycle of said crankshaft; means for summing said individual signals into a characteristic vector associated with each cycle and outputting said characteristic vectors; means for subjecting said characteristic vectors to a principle axis transformation; means for determining an average value of each of said characteristic vectors and a covariance matrix of said characteristic vectors; means for determining Eigenvectors of said covariance matrix; means for selecting ones of said Eigenvectors that exhibit most significant Eigen values and arranging said most significant Eigen values in a second matrix V; means for calculating a transformed feature vector as a function of said new matrix V, said characteristic vector and said average value of said characteristic vector; means for classifying said transformed feature vector and outputting the result of said classification.