An adjusting unit of an internal combustion engine is provided, comprising an electric motor and a transmission interacting therewith, an adjusting shaft of the transmission being coupled to the rotor of the electric motor. A drive shafts of the transmission coupled to the shaft which is to be adjusted. For controlling the electric motor, a sensorless control unit is provided outside of a housing of the electric motor which encloses the stator of the electric motor.

A valve timing controller for controlling a valve timing of an intake valve that opens and closes by a rotation of a camshaft to which a power is supplied from a crankshaft of an internal-combustion engine. The valve timing controller includes a phase changer changing a rotation phase for an adjustment of the valve timing; an electric actuator driving the phase changer; and a control section controlling an operation of the electric actuator, in which the control section performs a start time control process, controlling the valve timing to a rotation starter phase retarded from a preset reference phase at a start of crankshaft rotation, and controlling the valve timing to an engine started phase advanced therefrom after a passing of a top dead center in a first compression process by a piston in a cylinder after the start of crankshaft rotation and before completion of engine start.

A variable valve system including a crank angle sensor that measures a rotation angle of a crankshaft, a cam angle sensor that measures a rotation angle of a camshaft coupled to the crankshaft and which opens and closes valves, and a controller that controls the internal combustion engine. At least one of the crank angle sensor or the cam angle sensor is configured as an absolute angle sensor that measures an absolute rotation angle and outputs a voltage signal corresponding to this rotation angle. The controller is configured to perform a correction operation that corrects a rotation angle value calculated based on the voltage signal.

An electronic control unit of a control device for an internal combustion engine executes, for a first cycle, first drive processing for controlling an actuator such that a pin drive operation is executed for switching from a first cam to a second cam, executes second drive processing for controlling the actuator such that the pin drive operation is executed again for a second cycle, and executes abnormality determination processing for determining that a cam switching mechanism has an abnormality in a case where a pin returns to a reference position by using a pin return section following a cam switching section of the first cycle after the execution of the first drive processing and the pin returns to the reference position by using the pin return section following the cam switching section of the second cycle after the execution of the second drive processing.

A method is provided for operating a three step camshaft system during engine position sensor fault conditions. The three step camshaft has multiple cam actuators each having an actuator pin. The method includes: disposing multiple camshaft barrels on a camshaft, each barrel having a slot receiving the actuator pin of a cam actuator during camshaft barrel rotation axially displacing each camshaft barrel to a high lift lobe position, a low lift lobe position and an active fuel management (AFM) lobe position; determining if an engine position sensor is in a fault condition; identifying if the fault condition occurs simultaneously with any of the camshaft barrels positioned in the AFM lobe position; energizing selected cam actuators in communication with the camshaft barrels positioned in the AFM lobe position to axially displace the camshaft barrel away from the AFM lobe position and to the low lift lobe position.

A method of determining a sliding camshaft actuator pin position based on engine crankshaft angle includes commanding a sliding camshaft actuator to perform a valve step shift, and monitoring an actuator's pin position during the valve step shift command. At least one crank angle is measured when the actuator pin position reaches or exceeds at least one predetermined pin position threshold and at least one remedial action is performed when the actuator pin position does not correlate to the at least one measured crank angle.

An internal combustion engine system is provided with a cam switching device including a cam groove provided on the outer peripheral surface or a camshaft and an actuator capable of protruding, toward the camshaft, an engagement pin that is engageable with the cam groove. The internal combustion engine system is configured, in causing the cam switching device to perform a cam switching operation, to control the actuator such that the engagement pin is seated on a forward outer peripheral surface which is located more forward than an end of the cam groove on the forward side with respect to an insert section of the cam groove in the rotational direction of the camshaft.

To provide a control device capable of calculating a cam phase equal to an actual cam angle even when a corresponding cam angle signal detection range is exceeded by changing a cam phase by a variable valve mechanism. In addition to the conventional cam angle measuring function, a cam angle measuring means for advancing or retarding beyond a cam angle measurement reference position, and a means for determining that the cam angle signal advances or retards beyond the cam angle measurement reference position are provided. By switching the cam angle measuring function according to a determination result as to whether the cam angle signal exceeds the cam angle measurement reference position, it is possible to improve the time resolution of the angle measurement while maintaining the cam phase change amount at the same wide angle as the conventional one.

An electronic control unit of a control device for an internal combustion engine executes, for a first cycle, first drive processing for controlling an actuator such that a pin drive operation is executed for switching from a first cam to a second cam, executes second drive processing for controlling the actuator such that the pin drive operation is executed again for a second cycle, and executes abnormality determination processing for determining that a cam switching mechanism has an abnormality in a case where a pin returns to a reference position by using a pin return section following a cam switching section of the first cycle after the execution of the first drive processing and the pin returns to the reference position by using the pin return section following the cam switching section of the second cycle after the execution of-the second drive processing.

A method for controlling a high-pressure pump for the injection of fuel into a combustion engine, the high-pressure pump being connected to a camshaft of the combustion engine, wherein the high-pressure pump is controlled in a camshaft-synchronous manner by ascertaining an angular offset between the flank positions of a camshaft pulse-generating wheel and a predefinable point above the bottom dead center of a cam of the high-pressure pump on the camshaft.