Patent ID: 7369934

Claim:
A predictive combustion device, comprising: a data acquisition unit having an input at which is to be incident an input signal received from a first sensor related to a characteristic to be considered in a combustion event, the data acquisition unit receiving two values at the input of the data acquisition unit and utilizing those two values and a comparative time of receipt of the two values to determine a rate of change of the input signal, an output at which is to be incident an output signal related to a physical component of the combustion event, and a processor containing instructions which, when executed by the processor, cause the processor to: predict a state of the characteristic to be considered in the combustion event for a time in the future not equivalent to a whole multiple of the time between the receipt of the two values, based on the rate of change of the input signal; and provide the output signal at the output related to the physical component of the combustion event based on the predicted state of the characteristic.