Patent ID: 8555864

Claim:
A method for operating a combustion engine, the method which comprises: providing an internal combustion engine including a fresh-air system, an exhaust-gas system, an exhaust-gas turbocharger with a compressor disposed in the fresh-air system and a turbine disposed in the exhaust-gas system; providing an exhaust-gas recirculation cooler in a low-pressure exhaust-gas recirculation line; providing a pressure sensor in the low-pressure exhaust-gas recirculation line in flow direction in front of the exhaust-gas recirculation cooler, the pressure sensor including an absolute pressure sensor; diverting, via the low-pressure exhaust-gas recirculation line, recirculated exhaust-gas from the exhaust-gas system downstream of the turbine of the exhaust-gas turbocharger by using a low-pressure exhaust-gas recirculation valve and feeding recirculated exhaust-gas upstream of the compressor of the exhaust-gas turbocharger as a low-pressure exhaust-gas recirculation mass flow into the fresh-air system; providing an exhaust-gas flap in the exhaust-gas system downstream from where the low-pressure exhaust-gas recirculation line branches off from the exhaust-gas system; and opening the exhaust-gas flap and controlling a volume flow through the low-pressure exhaust-gas recirculation line exclusively with the low-pressure exhaust-gas recirculation valve as long as a pressure drop across the low-pressure exhaust-gas recirculation valve exceeds a given value and additionally actuating the exhaust-gas flap in a direction of closing in case the pressure drop across the low-pressure exhaust-gas recirculation valve falls below the given value in order to control the volume flow through the low-pressure exhaust-gas recirculation line.