Various embodiments include a method for identifying an inlet and an outlet valve stroke phase difference comprising: measuring pressure oscillations during operation; generating a corresponding signal; determining a corresponding crankshaft phase angle; applying a discrete Fourier transformation to the pressure signal to determine amplitudes of selected frequencies in relation to the crankshaft phase angle; determining lines of equal amplitudes of the frequencies based on the amplitudes depending on the phase differences using reference lines; determining an intersection of the lines by projection into a common plane; and determining the inlet valve stroke phase difference and the outlet valve stroke phase difference from the determined common intersection point of the lines of equal amplitudes of the selected signal frequencies.

Various embodiments include a method for identifying valve stroke phase differences during operation comprising: measuring dynamic pressure oscillations in the air intake tract; generating a corresponding signal; acquiring a crankshaft phase angle; acquiring the phase position and the amplitude of a signal frequency of the oscillations based on the pressure oscillation using discrete Fourier transformation; acquiring a line of an equal phase position and of equal amplitude of the signal frequency reflecting the inlet and the outlet stroke phase difference using reference lines; acquiring a common intersection point of a line of equal phase position and a line of equal amplitude by projection into a common plane; and determining the stroke phase differences and from the common intersection point.

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.

An apparatus includes a valve and an actuator. The valve has a portion movably disposed within a valve pocket defined by a cylinder head of an engine. The valve is configured to move relative to the cylinder head a distance between a closed position and an opened position. The portion of the valve defines a flow opening that is in fluid communication with a cylinder of an engine when the valve is in the opened position. The actuator is configured to selectively vary the distance between the closed position and the opened position.

An operating range boundary for switching a cam for driving an intake valve (drive cam) is changed in a direction of increasing an engine load if a target EGR rate is predicted to increase across the contour line of the EGR rate during an acceleration operation. By changing to such a high load direction, a range in which a large cam is selected is enlarged. That is, switching of the drive cam from the large cam to a small cam is delayed.

A four-stroke internal combustion engine is disclosed comprising an exhaust valve control arrangement with an exhaust valve phase-shifting device configured to phase-shift control of the at least one exhaust valve to a state where the at least one exhaust valve is controlled in such a way that it is opened during the expansion stroke of the engine and closed during the exhaust stroke of the engine, in order to achieve engine-braking via compression in the cylinders during the exhaust stroke. An inlet valve control arrangement comprises an inlet valve phase-shifting device configured to regulate the amount of air pumped through the engine during the engine braking by regulating the phase-shift of the at least one inlet valve. The present disclosure also relates to a vehicle comprising an engine and method of controlling an engine, a computer program and a computer program for performing a method of controlling an engine.

In a control device and a control method for an internal combustion engine according to the present invention, when a crank angle signal is behaving abnormally, a phase angle of an exhaust camshaft relative to a crankshaft is set to a reference phase angle, and a phase angle of an intake camshaft relative to the crankshaft is determined based on an intake cam signal and an exhaust cam signal. Furthermore, the phase difference between the exhaust cam signal generated when the relative phase angle of the exhaust camshaft is set to the reference phase angle and the intake cam signal generated when the relative phase angle of the intake camshaft is set to a target value is greater after a start-up of the internal combustion engine than during the start-up.

Disclosed is a method for determining the state of rotation of a camshaft of a vehicle engine, notable in that the method for determining the state of rotation of the camshaft determines that the state of rotation of the camshaft is in the process of stalling, corresponding to an intermediate state of rotation, when the time elapsed since the last detection of a camshaft wheel tooth-front by the sensor exceeds Tcam_cal, Tcam_cal being defined as the theoretical length of time needed for the camshaft wheel to cover an angular distance equal to the maximum angular distance separating two successive camshaft wheel tooth-fronts at a camshaft rotational speed corresponding to a predetermined low engine speed higher than the minimum engine speed tolerated by the engine.

A method for controlling intake and exhaust valves of an engine may include: determining, by a controller, a target opening duration of the intake and exhaust valves based on an engine load and an engine speed; modifying, by an intake continuous variable valve duration (CVVD) device and by an exhaust CVVD device, current opening and closing timings of the intake valve and/or exhaust valve based on the target opening duration of the valves; and advancing or retarding, by the intake and/or exhaust CVVD devices, the current opening timing of the intake and exhaust valves while simultaneously retarding or advancing the current closing timing of the intake and exhaust valve by a predetermined value based on the target opening duration.

In a control device and a control method for a variable valve timing mechanism according to the present invention, the rotational phase of a camshaft is measured based on the cam angle signal and crank angle signal upon receiving each pulse of the cam angle signal, and the rotational phase change over time within a period of the cam angle signal is measured based on the motor angle signal. It is decided whether the cam angle signal and/or crank angle signal has a prescribed pulse pattern at a diagnostic timing that comes after the last pulse of the cam angle signal. When this decision result is positive, it is then decided whether the motor angle sensor operates normally or abnormally based on the rotational phase and the amount of rotational phase change that are measured when the last pulse of the cam angle signal is received before the diagnostic timing.