New control-unit concept for gaseous-fuel drives

IAV has developed a gaseous-fuel control unit that lets gasoline concepts change to bivalent operation

IAV has developed a gaseous-fuel slave control unit that provides the means for upgrading virtually all gasoline concepts to run on gaseous fuels quickly and cost effectively without having to modify the existing engine control unit. This innovation from IAV combines the use of the gasoline system's validated calibration data with the extended flexibility given by the slave control unit and an optimised OEM-specific component set for gaseous-fuel systems. The entire system, which comprises the control unit, the gaseous-fuel component set as well as the master control unit and the gasoline components, makes it possible to meet the current and future requirements of emission legislation and is therefore future-proof. Large-scale mass production of the slave control unit is set to start at production partner MGH.

In IAV's newly developed concept, the original engine control unit works in conjunction with the slave control unit. The signals for actuating the gasoline injectors are first fed to the control unit for the gaseous-fuel drive. A high-precision analysis unit processes the signals and computes the necessary adjustments – i.e. the optimum gaseous-fuel injection times – which, depending on operating point, may differ from the values for gasoline operation. Here, IAV's electronics use the sensor values from the original engine management system as well as additional parameters, such as pressure and temperature in the gas rail. By combining the existing engine control unit with the slave control unit, the original gasoline calibration is left unchanged. This allows manufacturers to use the same gaseous-fuel slave control unit for different engine versions. Extremely efficient hardware forms the basis for the gaseous-fuel control unit: The microcomputer it uses is specialized in high-speed floating-point arithmetic and can be programmed fully automatically using an autocode generator. This ensures rapid adjustments to new functionalities and short times to market. Open system interfaces allow the hardware to be combined with many EMS components and systems.