A method for operating an internal combustion engine of a motor vehicle, where the internal combustion engine includes a combustion chamber and a prechamber spark plug which is assigned to the combustion chamber and which has a prechamber which is fluidically connected to the combustion chamber via a plurality of openings. The method includes operating the internal combustion engine in a catalytic converter heating operation in which an ignition time, at which an ignition spark for igniting a fuel-air mixture in the combustion chamber is generated in the prechamber within a particular operating cycle of the internal combustion engine, is shifted later compared to a normal operation. An injection time, at which a last direct fuel injection into the combustion chamber is carried out within the particular operating cycle, is a same in the catalytic converter heating operation and in the normal operation.

Provided is an internal combustion engine control device capable of reducing a control error of the ignition timing as compared with the conventional technique. The internal combustion engine control device of the present disclosure includes a neural network model that receives three or more variables including at least a rotation speed, a load, and another specific variable of an internal combustion engine as inputs and outputs a control amount of the internal combustion engine. The neural network model includes a first neural network model having a reference value of the specific variable as an input and a second neural network model having a current value of the specific variable as an input. The internal combustion engine control device of the present disclosure corrects a reference value of the control amount calculated based on the rotation speed and the load using a difference or a ratio between the output of the first neural network model and the output of the second neural network model as a correction amount.

A controller of an engine with a supercharger includes, for each of cylinders, fuel supply system and an ignition plug. The controller includes an electronic control unit that is configured to: (i) set a basic ignition timing depending on an operation state of the engine, (ii) detect, for each cycle, an abnormal combustion generation cylinder in which an abnormal combustion is generated in a supercharged region, (iii) execute a fuel cut to stop a fuel supply by the fuel supply system for the abnormal combustion generation cylinder, (iv) change an ignition timing of the abnormal combustion generation cylinder to expand a crank angle width between a compression top dead center and the basic ignition timing for several cycles after start of the fuel cut, and (v) execute an ignition cut that prohibits a spark from being generated by the ignition plug, further after elapse of the several cycles is executed.

A method of operating an dedicated exhaust gas recirculation engine including a water gas shift catalyst by supplying ambient air and fuel to a dedicated cylinder at a first fuel to air equivalence ratio in the range of greater than 1.0 to 1.6 for a first number of engine cycles and, for a second number of engine cycles, supplying ambient air and fuel to the dedicated cylinder at a second fuel to air equivalence ratio in the range of 0.7 to less than 1.0. During the second number of cycles, spark timing of the dedicated cylinder is adjusted and a time delay when exhaust recirculated from the dedicated cylinder will be inducted into the cylinders is determined. At the end of the time delay, a second spark timing of the main cylinder is adjusted and the amount of fuel supplied to the main cylinders is increased.

A system includes an internal combustion engine having a number of cylinders, with at least one of the cylinder(s) being a primary EGR cylinder that is dedicated to provided EGR flow during at least some operating conditions. A controller is structured to control combustion conditions in the cylinders in response to one or more operating conditions associated with the engine.

Methods and systems are provided for reducing a spark plug soot load and a combustion chamber soot load by controlling spark plug timing while injecting water or washer fluid. In one example, water or washer fluid is injected during a torque reduction while advancing spark timing so as to provide at least a portion of the torque reduction while opportunistically cleaning soot from the spark plug and combustion chamber. By reducing spark plug soot load, misfire occurrence is reduced, while pre-ignition occurrence is reduced by decarbonizing the combustion chamber.

This disclosure is intended to suppress a noble metal supported by a three-way catalyst from being deteriorated by oxidation with the execution of fuel cut processing in a suitable manner. A control apparatus for a naturally aspirated gasoline engine is provided with a three-way catalyst, a first throttle valve, a second throttle valve arranged in the intake passage at the downstream side of the first throttle valve, an EGR valve, and a controller. When the controller carries out fuel cut processing and the temperature of the three-way catalyst is equal to or higher than a predetermined temperature, the controller introduces the EGR gas into a cylinder of the gasoline engine as intake air by fully closing the first throttle valve and by opening the EGR valve, and further controls an amount of the EGR gas by adjusting the degree of opening of the second throttle valve.

An engine control system includes first and second control modules. The first control module determines a fuel combustion parameter. The second control module determines a fuel delivery parameter based on the fuel combustion parameter. The fuel combustion parameter includes at least one of (i) a total amount of heat released by a volume of fuel during a combustion cycle and (ii) a rate at which heat is released during the combustion cycle. The fuel delivery parameter includes at least one of (i) a duration of time over which the volume of fuel is delivered to a cylinder, (ii) a time at which a fuel injector starts delivering the volume of fuel to the cylinder, and (iii) a fuel pressure in a fuel rail.

A method for operating an internal combustion engine of a motor vehicle, where the internal combustion engine includes a combustion chamber and a prechamber spark plug which is assigned to the combustion chamber and which has a prechamber which is fluidically connected to the combustion chamber via a plurality of openings. The method includes operating the internal combustion engine in a catalytic converter heating operation in which an ignition time, at which an ignition spark for igniting a fuel-air mixture in the combustion chamber is generated in the prechamber within a particular operating cycle of the internal combustion engine, is shifted later compared to a normal operation. An injection time, at which a last direct fuel injection into the combustion chamber is carried out within the particular operating cycle, is a same in the catalytic converter heating operation and in the normal operation.

A control device predicts whether temporary reduction occurs to a charging efficiency of fresh air in an in-cylinder gas by an influence of an EGR rate of the in-cylinder gas, which increases later than increase of a charging efficiency of the in-cylinder gas, if a first arithmetic operation is applied to calculating a target throttle opening degree based on a target charging efficiency which is increasing, in a case of shifting to an acceleration operation, by using a prediction model expressing dynamic characteristics of an internal combustion engine. When it is predicted that temporary reduction occurs to the charging efficiency of the fresh air, the control device calculates the target throttle opening degree by a second arithmetic operation by which an increase speed of a throttle opening degree is restrained more than by the first arithmetic operation, instead of calculating the target throttle opening degree by the first arithmetic operation.