Patent ID: 7168413

Claim:
A fuel injector control apparatus for a cylinder injection type internal combustion engine having a plurality of cylinders, comprising: a plurality of injector groups each including a predetermined number of fuel injectors for injecting fuel into the associated cylinders, respectively, wherein driving coils for driving said fuel injectors which belong to a same injector group have ends connected to a common potential source; a plurality of switching means connected to said common potential source of said injector groups, respectively, for turning on/off driving currents supplied to said driving coils of said fuel injectors belonging to the same group upon being fired; fuel quantity/injection timing arithmetic means for arithmetically determining a fuel supply quantity and a fuel injection timing for said plurality of fuel injectors on the basis of information derived from outputs of various types of sensors; a plurality of driving circuits provided in correspondence to said injector groups, respectively, for generating an injector driving signal for firing said switching means in response to an output of said fuel quantity/injection timing arithmetic means; and ground fault identifying/discriminating means for detecting occurrence of a ground fault in relation to said injector group and specifying a ground fault occurrence location at which said ground fault is taking place upon detection thereof, wherein said fuel quantity/injection timing arithmetic means is so designed that when said ground fault occurrence location is specified by said ground fault identifying/discriminating means, said fuel quantity/injection timing arithmetic means stops fuel injection from other fuel injector(s) of the injector group to which the fuel injector specified as suffering the ground fault belongs.