In-Cylinder Pressure Analysis for Internal Combustion Engine Control

In-cylinder pressure measurement forms the foundation of advanced combustion control by providing direct insight into the thermodynamic processes within an engine cylinder. Accurate pressure traces enable closed-loop regulation of ignition timing, fuel injection and air–fuel ratio to optimise indicated efficiency, reduce cycle-to-cycle variability and minimise pollutant formation. Traditional flush-mounted pressure transducers deliver high fidelity but incur significant cost, durability and installation challenges in harsh environments. Consequently, there has been a rapid expansion of virtual and indirect sensing methods that exploit signals such as crankshaft speed, cylinder-head vibration and structural strain. These approaches leverage modern signal processing and estimation algorithms to reconstruct pressure profiles in real time without intrusive sensors. Widespread adoption of these techniques promises to enhance performance across passenger vehicles, heavy-duty engines and power-generation plants, supporting stringent emissions regulations and the transition towards more sustainable combustion strategies.

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In-Cylinder Pressure Analysis for Internal Combustion Engine Control publication trend

The graph below shows the total number of articles in in-cylinder pressure analysis for internal combustion engine control across all publications each year (not limited to Nature Index journals).

Technical terms

In-cylinder pressure: The instantaneous pressure inside the combustion chamber during the engine cycle.

Closed-loop control: A feedback system that adjusts engine parameters in response to real-time measurements.

Virtual sensor: A software-based estimator that infers a physical quantity from indirect measurements.

Extended Kalman Filter: A recursive algorithm for estimating states of a nonlinear dynamic system from noisy measurements.

Discrete wavelet transform: A signal-processing technique that decomposes a signal into time-frequency components for feature extraction.

References

1. Review of Sensing Methodologies for Estimation of Combustion Metrics. Journal of Combustion (2016).
2. In-Cylinder Pressure Estimation from Rotational Speed Measurements via Extended Kalman Filter. Sensors (2023).
3. Estimation of Combustion Parameters from Engine Vibrations Based on Discrete Wavelet Transform and Gradient Boosting. Sensors (2022).
4. Experimental Assessment of a Methodology for the Indirect in-Cylinder Pressure Evaluation in Four-Stroke Internal Combustion Engines. Energies (2018).