The present disclosure relates to the technical field of combustion-supporting of compression ignition engines, and provides a hot surface combustion-supporting system of an engine, for solving the problem in the prior art that direct use of methanol by an engine is affected due to the fact that methanol cannot be directly compression-ignited. In an embodiment, the system includes: a hot surface igniter, which is used for igniting fuel of an engine; and a controller, which is used for performing temperature control of the hot surface igniter, can also communicate with an ECU of the engine, and is used for receiving a control signal of the ECU and a pre-set temperature value, and controlling on or off of the hot surface igniter according to the received control signal and the pre-set temperature value. The use of fuel having high latent heat of vaporization or high ignition temperature such as liquefied natural gas (LNG) in a compression ignition engine faces the same problem, which is covered by the present disclosure, and to which the present disclosure is applicable.

In a control apparatus, a discharge control unit controls an igniter unit so that a flow of current from a primary coil towards a ground side is blocked, thereby generating a high voltage in a secondary coil, and controls a spark plug so that the spark plug generates electric discharge. An energy input control unit controls an energy input unit so as to input electrical energy to an ignition coil after the start of control of the spark plug by the discharge control unit. A control unit and an abnormality detecting unit detects an abnormality in the igniter unit or the ignition coil based on a first threshold and a first current value that is a value corresponding to a current detected by a current detection circuit at this time, when a first predetermined period elapses after the start of control of the spark plug by the discharge control unit.

A method for operating an ignition coil is described, wherein a secondary voltage pulse is generated by feeding a primary voltage pulse into a transformer of the ignition coil, and a primary current, a primary voltage, a secondary current and/or a secondary voltage are measured, wherein the course of the primary current, the primary voltage, the secondary voltage and/or the secondary current are monitored and, when a malfunction is determined during subsequent primary voltage pulse, an error signal is generated which indicates that a malfunction has occurred during the previous primary voltage pulse and classifies the malfunction. In addition, a corresponding ignition coil is described.

An internal-combustion-engine combustion state detecting apparatus is configured in such a way as to include a circulation unit that short-circuits a primary winding so as to form a circulation path including the primary winding, while a spark discharge is produced in an ignition plug, and a circulation current control unit that controls a circulation current flowing in the circulation path and in such a way that based on an ion current detected by an ion current detection apparatus, the combustion state of an inflammable fuel-air mixture is detected.

An internal-combustion-engine combustion state detecting apparatus is configured in such a way as to include a circulation unit that short-circuits a primary winding so as to form a circulation path including the primary winding, while a spark discharge is produced in an ignition plug, and a circulation current control unit that controls a circulation current flowing in the circulation path and in such a way that based on an ion current detected by an ion current detection apparatus, the combustion state of an inflammable fuel-air mixture is detected.

An ignition timing control device has a knocking detection unit and an ignition timing adjustment unit. In a condition that the operation state of the internal combustion engine is suitable for adjustment of the ignition timing, the ignition timing control device outputs to an igniter an adjusted ignition signal as adjusted (corrected) by an adjusted ignition timing determination process. The ignition timing control device outputs to the igniter a reference ignition signal as it is outputted from an internal combustion engine control unit without adjustment (correction) in a condition that the operation state of the internal combustion engine is not suitable for adjustment of the ignition timing.

An electronic device for the ignition system of an engine, which may incorporate circuitry for voltage amplification via transformer action, while also containing circuitry for sensing operational parameters, circuitry for calculation of derived values from the sensed data or operational parameters, circuitry for storage of the data and derived values, circuitry for engine system control, and circuitry for the wireless communication of data and derived values.

A secondary controller for controlling the performance of an automobile is described. The secondary controller can be configured to temporarily reprogram one or more vehicle controllers, such as the engine control unit, after the automobile has been powered on. The secondary controller can substitute command sets with different command sets by rewriting the corresponding portion of RAM. The secondary controller can receive vehicle information from the engine control unit to determine the particular type of vehicle to locate the particular command in RAM in order to rewrite the command set. In one embodiment, the secondary controller communicates with the vehicle controller via the vehicle's diagnostic port, such as an OBD-II port. In another embodiment, the secondary controller can be configured to control a variable displacement engine in a vehicle to command the vehicle to operate using all available cylinders.

A corona ignition system for maintaining a drive frequency approximately equal to the resonant frequency of a corona igniter is provided. The system includes a current sensor, at least two cascaded timers which are electrically independent of a controller, and at least two switches. During operation, the current sensor measures the current at an input of the corona igniter. A conditioned current signal including information related to the zero crossings of the current ultimately activates a pair of the timers which in turn control and drive one of the switches. The conditioned current signal is not processed by the controller before driving the switch.

An internal combustion engine igniter of the present invention includes a current limiting circuit that limits current flowing to the IGBT by controlling a gate voltage of the IGBT in accordance with the current flowing to the IGBT, a waveform-shaping circuit that suppresses an oscillation of the current flowing to the IGBT by applying to the gate voltage of the IGBT an auxiliary voltage generated from a collector voltage of the IGBT when current is being limited by the current limiting circuit, and, in addition, a heat-generation suppressing circuit that obtains an intermediate voltage by resistively dividing the auxiliary voltage generated by the waveform-shaping circuit when current is being limited by the current limiting circuit, and that suppresses IGBT heat generation by increasing the current flowing to the IGBT in accordance with the intermediate voltage.