An internal combustion engine of a vehicle is equipped with a plurality of cylinders, and ignition devices provided for the cylinders respectively. The vehicle is mounted with an ECU. The ECU performs an ignition timing decision process for deciding a basic ignition timing of the ignition devices in accordance with a load of the internal combustion engine. The ECU performs a misfire determination process for determining that a misfire has occurred on a condition that the torque has decreased below a threshold set in advance. The ECU performs a retardation process for controlling an ignition timing toward a retardation side from the basic ignition timing when a state of the vehicle satisfies a condition determined in advance. A determination on the occurrence of a misfire based on a relationship in magnitude between the torque and the threshold is not made during the retardation process, in the misfire determination process.

An electronic control unit for a vehicle with a combustion engine and a method of fuel analysis are provided. At least one dynamic torque sensor value from a high pressure pump of the vehicle and at least one additional sensor value including at least one pressure sensor value and/or at least one timing value are used to determine whether a combustible fuel type currently in use is known, unknown, or similar to a known fuel type. In each case, the operation of the combustion engine is optimized using specific parameter configurations for the fuel injectors of the vehicle. The specific parameter configurations are either retrieved from a database, or are generated using artificial intelligence methods.

A controller performs a rotation angle deriving process that derives a value of the rotation angle of a crankshaft by each specified angle that is smaller than a predetermined angle by performing a Hilbert process on a detection signal from a crankshaft sensor, an angular velocity deriving process that derives an angular velocity of the crankshaft as an engine angular velocity from the value of the rotation angle of the crankshaft by each specified angle, an inertia torque calculation process that calculates an engine inertia torque from the engine angular velocity, a resonance effect torque calculation process that calculates a resonance effect torque, and an engine torque calculation process that calculates a sum of the resonance effect torque and the engine inertia torque as an engine torque that is an output torque of the engine.

A vehicle control system includes an accelerator sensor which detects an accelerator opening, and a processor which sets a target acceleration of a vehicle based on the detected accelerator opening, sets a target torque of a drive source based on the set target acceleration, and controls the drive source to generate the set target torque. In a case where the target acceleration at a time when the accelerator opening is increased is set as a depression-increasing target acceleration and the target acceleration at a time when the accelerator opening is decreased is set as a pedal-returning target acceleration, under the same condition of the accelerator opening, the processor sets the target acceleration such that the depression-increasing target acceleration and the pedal-returning target acceleration are different from each other in a predetermined range of an upper limit acceleration or less and a lower limit acceleration or greater.

A control device serving as a torque estimation device includes a storage device and a processing circuit. The storage device stores data of a trained neural network. The trained neural network is trained using training data including data of an actually-measured torque that is measured, data of an accelerator operation amount in a period of a predetermined length up to a time point of measurement of the actually-measured torque, and data of an acceleration of a vehicle from the time point of measurement of the actually-measured torque onward. The processing circuit inputs, to the trained neural network stored in the storage device, input data including the data of the accelerator operation amount and the data of the acceleration of the vehicle, to estimate a torque generated in a power transmission member.

An engine control system includes: a normalization module configured to normalize, to within a predetermined range of values, a spark timing of an engine and at least one other parameter of the engine, thereby producing a normalized spark timing and at least one normalized other parameter, respectively; a processing module configured to generate a sigmoidal spark timing by applying, to the normalized spark timing, one of (a) a sigmoidal function and a sinusoidal function; and an estimation module configured to estimate a torque output of the engine based on the normalized spark timing and the at least one normalized other parameter using a mathematical model.

A control device may be configured to control an aperture of a throttle valve. The control device may include a pressure detector configured to detect a pressure in an intake pipe of a throttle; a flow rate detector configured to detect an amount of air flowing in the intake pipe; a current value detector configured to detect a current value of a throttle motor operating the throttle valve; a torque estimator configured to estimate torque of an engine based on the detected current value; a first aperture estimator configured to estimate the aperture of the throttle valve based on the detected pressure; a second aperture estimator configured to estimate the aperture of the throttle valve based on the detected amount of air; and a third aperture estimator configured to estimate the aperture of the throttle valve based on the estimated torque and a revolution speed of the engine.

An engine control system includes: a normalization module configured to normalize, to within a predetermined range of values, a spark timing of an engine and at least one other parameter of the engine, thereby producing a normalized spark timing and at least one normalized other parameter, respectively; a processing module configured to generate a sigmoidal spark timing by applying, to the normalized spark timing, one of (a) a sigmoidal function and a sinusoidal function; and an estimation module configured to estimate a torque output of the engine based on the normalized spark timing and the at least one normalized other parameter using a mathematical model.

A controller for a hybrid vehicle controls an electric motor such that a motor torque is input to a crankshaft in order to compensate for a decrease in an engine torque when a cylinder deactivation control is executed, the decrease resulting from suspension of combustion in one or some of cylinders. The controller calculates an engine torque calculated value using an engine rotation speed, a motor rotation speed, and the motor torque. The controller diagnoses that the cylinder deactivation control is functioning normally when the engine torque calculated value is less than a torque determination value and diagnose that the cylinder deactivation control is not functioning normally when the engine torque calculated value is not less than the torque determination value during the execution of the cylinder deactivation control.

A misfire determination period is set to a predetermined range of a crank angle. A CPU performs: a calculation process of calculating an average value of a torque of an output shaft of an internal combustion engine in the misfire determination period; a misfire determining process of determining that a misfire has occurred when the calculated average value is less than a prescribed threshold value; and a process of setting the whole misfire determination period to a period in a positive torque range which is a range of a crank angle at which the torque of the output shaft is equal to or greater than zero at the time of normal combustion in which a misfire does not occur.