Real-time estimation of fuel injection rate and injection volume in high-pressure common rail systems

The injection rate and injection volume are essential parameters for the combustion process, which greatly affect the engine efficiency and emission performance. However, at the current time the injection information cannot be obtained in real time during the actual operation of engine. This paper presents a novel real-time estimation method for the injection rate and injection volume based on the measurable rail pressure. A comprehensive dynamic model is derived by considering both the effect of fuel injection and supply process on the pressure fluctuation. Then a linear time-varying state space model is constructed by choosing three appropriate state variables. On this basis, considering the measurement noise and model uncertainty, a Kalman filter-based estimation method of the injection information is investigated. And the noise covariance matrix Q is optimally designed to adapt to a wide range of operating conditions. The proposed estimation method is validated on the different conditions, and the results show the injection rate estimation errors are within 4.5%, the injection volume estimation errors are within 4%. And on the situation with overlap of injection and supply process, the injection rate and injection volume estimation errors are all within 4.5%.