Patent ID: 6983731

Claim:
A method for operating a fuel injection system for an internal combustion engine having at least one bank of at least two cylinders, the fuel injection system having at least two piezoelectric elements, each cylinder having associated with it at least one respective piezoelectric element for injecting fuel into the cylinder by at least one of charging and discharging the respective piezoelectric element by a supply unit associated with the at least two piezoelectric elements, the method comprising: monitoring for an occurrence of an overlap between a first time interval in which a first piezoelectric element is to be one of charged and discharged, and a second time interval in which a second piezoelectric element is to be one of charged and discharged, wherein the monitoring for the overlap includes monitoring for an occurrence of at least one of charging and discharging of a lower-priority injection within a predefined time interval around a point in time of at least one of charging and discharging of a higher-priority injection during operation of the fuel injection system; and determining, based on the overlap, a magnitude of at least one of a shift and a shortening of the lower-priority injection with respect to the higher-priority injection.