Development of Custom-made Engine Control
Unit for a Research Engine
Jeeva Ba*, Swapnil Awateb, Rajesh Jc, Arindrajit Chowdhuryd, Sreedhara Sheshadrie
Department of Mechanical Engineering, Indian Institute of Technology Bombay,
Email*: jeevmech@gmail.com, Ph: +917022359860.
Abstract
In this paper, hardware development, software
coding using embedded C programming language for an
Arduino ATMEGA microcontroller, calibration of
electronic control unit (ECU) was tested for a research
engine to control the fuel injection flow rate with respect to
the suction top dead center (TDC) of the engine. The system
could control the fuel flow rate with a variable reluctance
sensor, an Arduino microcontroller and a solenoid operated
injector in a closed loop domain with a varying pulse width
modulator controlled exclusively by the engine operator.
The injection flow rates were measured and
calibrated with the calculated fuel flow rates for different
equivalence ratios (Ø) of the engine. The results showed a
very close match between the measured fuel flow rates after
calibration and the calculated fuel flow rates at 1500 RPM.
The gasoline mass flow rate error was reduced from 40% to
3.25% by compensating the ON/OFF time of the pulse
width.
Keywords: Pulse width modulation (PWM), Arduino
microcontroller, variable reluctance sensor, solenoid
operated injector, equivalence ratio (Ø).
I. Introduction and Background
All modern automotive engines are controlled by
an ECU. ECU calibration or tune-up significantly affects
the engine performance, combustion and emission
characteristics. Hosoda et al., [1] utilizing
microcomputers, developed a universal control unit
(UCU), a data acquisition unit (DAU) and an engine
simulation unit (ESU) for an overall engine control
development system. The system was versatile for testing
hardware and software of engine control units. Yoshida
et al., [2] worked on the programming of ECU by C
programming language by using 16 bit proprietary
microprocessor. Only the software architecture was
defined by four layers, consisting of hardware definition
layer, input/output layer, interrupt layer and application
layer. The basic structure with generalized algorithm was
only published. While the programming algorithm and
ECU calibrations were not discussed.
Glielmo et al., [3] proposed a hierarchical
structure for the tasks of the electronic control unit
comprising driver interpreter, engine controller and
actuator controller for a single cylinder engine designed
978-1-4799-6986-9/14/$31.00©2014 IEEE
according to the IEC1499 international standard.
Gonzalez et al., [4] developed a simulation design of an
ECU for an Otto cycle engine with electronic fuel
injection using Simulink and state flow modules of
MATLAB software.
ECU functions were developed for the following
functions like spark advance control, pulse width
modulator (PWM) depending on throttle plate angle and
engine speeds, PWM depending on ambient air
temperature, closed loop control based on exhaust gas
oxygen sensor, and fault tolerance for EGR sensor
failure, cooling fan failure and fuel stoppage in case of
failure of speed and throttle sensors. Similarly Vijay et
al., [5] simulated an ECU for controlling the vehicle
speed by actuating electronic fuel injector and provided
safety to the driver by avoiding the collision using infra-
red sensor and deployment of the air bags using micro
electro mechanical system (MEMS) accelerometer in the
case of emergency using adaptive cruise control (ACC)
system. Surapa et al., [6] explored the use of explicit-
state model checker [mc] square to verify and analyze the
embedded software for piezo controlled carburetor (PCC)
system to improve the quality of the ECU software.
Vong et al., [7] implemented case based
reasoning (CBR) for calibrating ECUs. With case based
reasoning (CBR) and case based adaptation (CBA), the
calibration of ECUs were enhanced with low cost and
lesser time for calibration instead of traditional methods
with trial error approach. Sarkar et al., [8] developed an
electronic control system for varying the fuel injection
timing and fuel flow rate for a port injected gasoline 3-
cylinder engine for a 4-wheeler . However, many of the
details like controller details, algorithms, calibration were
not discussed. The carburetted 3- cylinder engine was
converted to a port injection engine with increase in
thermal and volumetric efficiencies and decrease in HC
and CO emissions. Manivannan et al., [9] developed an
ECU using dSPACE micro auto box controller with
Simulink as a graphical programming language for a 2-
wheeler engine. The 2-wheeler engine was converted
from carburettor design to a single cylinder port injection
engine design with reductions in CO, HC, specific fuel
consumption and NOx.
A. Motivation
Port-injection HCCI engines are in the
developmental stages from last two decades. These
research engines require an efficient yet simple engine
control unit for operation in the homogeeneous charge
compression ignition (HCCI) mode. Manny researchers
[10-24] demonstrated port- injection HCC CI for different
fuels like gasoline, diesel, di methoxy metthane (DMM),
n-heptane, hydrogen, liquefied petroleum m gas (LPG),
ethanol, di ethyl ether (DEE), iso -octane, aacetylene, pure
bioethanol, wet ethanol, etc.
From the literature surveyed, it is cclear that none
of the studies published the entire devellopment of an
ECU from the initial stages to the final coompletion. The
previous researchers [10-24] who workked on port-
injection HCCI engines did not explain thee ECU system
in detail. Additionally, it was evident thhat researchers
were working exclusively on softwaree architecture,
hierarchical architecture of ECU, univversal control
system development, ECU programming using C with
microprocessor, simulation of ECU using state flow and
Simulink modules of MATLAB sofftware, ECU
development using dSPACE controllerr for engine
application without focusing specially on aany algorithms
and details of ECU hardware componennts. Hence an
integration of all activities of developmentt of ECU for a
simple control system is required for better understanding
of the control system.
Although port-injection gasoline engines with
ECU have been used extensively in the few w decades, the
understanding of the development activitties of engine
control unit is still not clear for the researcch community.
ECU’s are typically used as black boxes inn practice with
no coding available for any modificationns for research
activities. For research activities, one has tto test the fuel
injection duration, injection timing for new w design of fuel
injection system, at different process condditions for the
engine. In such cases the ECU has to be redesigned so
that the changes can be incorporated foor preliminary
testing and calibration in a laboratory. Heence a flexible
control unit is required for research enginess.
These factors motivated us to work in the
direction of developing an engine contrrol unit for a
gasoline port-injected HCCI engine.
B. Present work
The present work involves developm ment of an ECU
for varying the fuel flow rate by pulse widdth modulation
achieved by an Arduino micro-controllerr and the fuel
injection timing is triggered by the variaable reluctance
sensor connected to the engine camshaft.
II. Experimental set up
The ECU was tested and calibrated ussing a variable
reluctance sensor attached to the engine annd the resultant
injection behavior was tested independentlyy of the engine
at 1500 RPM. The ECU development comprises of
hardware design with the sensor- injectorr interface and
PCB drawings, software algorithm aand complete
program, as well as pulse width calculation methodology
for the specific engine.
A. ECU hardware design with w sensor, solenoid-
injector interfaces
The camshaft was provided with
w a missing gear tooth
(50-1 toothed gear) to trigger thhe initiation of injection.
To sense the longer delay perio od, a variable reluctance
(VR) sensor was in front of the tooothed gear used. Figure
1 shows the schematic view of th he hardware components
with the arduino controller. The AC output of 1.2 V to 4
V from the VR-sensor was con nverted to a DC signal
using a LM741 preamplifier. Th he DC signal output with
positive and negative cycles is further filtered by a
LM324 quad-operational amplifier. Only positive DC
signal output cycles from the qu uad-operational amplifier
are fed to the microcontroller. A reference voltage of 2.2
V was set through the PCB moun nt trimmer potentiometer
(trim pot) as voltage divider.
The Arduino microcontrolleer requires a 5V supply
for operation which was provideed from a laptop through
a USB port. The output signal from the Arduino
microcontroller is processed to o the Darlington driver
which is a current amplifier that acts as a solenoid driver
for the solenoid-operated injectoor. The other terminal of
the solenoid injector is supplied with 12 V power supply
from a regulated DC power source. Based on the
different on times of off timees for the injector for
achieving different equivalen nce ratios of engine
condition, the root mean squaree (RMS) voltage varies
across the injector. Figure 2 showws the screen shot of the
circuit drawing for the hardwaare system using Eagle
software.
Figure 1 ECU hardware design with
w sensor interfaces.
 The Synchronization of injection setting timing ii. Algorithm for code
and the quantity of fuel injection was peerformed after A. Detect the highest time delay in the system and
detecting the longer delay period due to thee missing tooth inject the gasoline when n delay period is higher
and the fuel was injected at the suctionn TDC of the than the regular delay y period between two
engine cycle using Embedded C program foor the Arduino successive gear teeth.
micro-controller, the specifications for whhich are shown B. The total injection cyclee duration is 80 ms hence
in Table 1. pulse width modulation n is incorporated in the
code with ON time of 5 ms and OFF time of 75
ms.
iii. Program for the microcontrolller
Figure 3 shows the flow wchart for the program.
When the voltage is low (0V) and when i>25 in the
flowchart (higher delay period), the flag is set to 1. After
detection of the high voltage (5V V) at the raising edge of
the pulse width modulation, the flag
f is checked for flag=1
and then injection starts. Figuree 4 shows the complete
embedded C language program for the microcontroller.
The void set up ( ) comm mand in the Arduino
microcontroller ensures the entire while loop operates
continuously, therefore injectin ng the fuel from the
Figure 2 Circuit drawing for the hardware system
solenoid injector.
Table 1 Arduino AT mega microcontroller speecification

Sl. Description Deetails

No
1 Microcontroller ATmegga328
2 Operating Voltage 5V
3 Input Voltage 7-12V
(recommended)
4 Input Voltage (limits) 6-20V
5 Digital I/O Pins 14 (of which 6
providde
PWMM output)
6 Analog Input Pins 6
7 DC Current per I/O Pin 40 mAA
8 DC Current for 3.3V Pin 50 mAA
9 Flash Memory 32 KB
10 Static rom access memory 2 KB
(SRAM) (ATmeega328)
11 Electrically Erasable 1 KB
Programmable Read-Only (ATmeega328)
Memory EEPROM
12 Clock Speed 16 MH
Hz

m
B. Software algorithm, flowchart program

i. Objective of the coding

A. To inject gasoline at suction TD DC with signal
from VR sensor (i.e. to sense thee point in time
with higher time delay in the misssing gear tooth
when the engine is in operation).
B. 80 ms is the duration cycle at 15000 RPM, hence
after detection of gasoline injection the injection
should be ON for 5 ms and OFF for 75 ms for
achieving an equivalence ratio of 00.1.
C. Only gasoline flow variation and fixed point of
injection is to be considered.
Figure 3 Flow chart forr the program
C. Pulse width calculation meth
hodology for the engine.
The fuel-air equivalence ratio is defined by ‘Ø’ and was
calculated using (1)
A
Ø (1)
S
The stoichiometric fuel to air ratio for gasoline is 14.7. A. VR sensor output characteristiics
With the mass flow rate of air (ma) beingg 7.2 *10-3kg/s Figure 5 shows the AC C signal output of the
and simulating the calculations for differennt equivalence variable reluctance sensor from the 50-1 toothed gear. 4
ratio (Ø), actual air-fuel ratio was obtained. By V AC voltage was detected fro om the sensor for 1500
converting the mass flow rate of air and ffuel to suction RPM speed of the engine.
strokes of the 4-stroke engine, mass flow rrate of the fuel
was obtained in (kg/suction strokes). With the mass flow
rate of fuel in kg/s and mass flow rate of fuuel (kg/suction
strokes) the ON time of the injection timingg was obtained
in milliseconds. With the 4-stroke engine ruunning at 1500
rpm, 80 ms is the total duration of a singlee cycle. Hence
ON/OFF time values were simulated for ddifferent fuel–
air equivalence ratio (Ø) based on this concept. The
ON/OFF time must be implemented maanually in the
program for obtaining required operatinng range with
respect to Ø for the research engine.

Figure 5 Variable reluctancce sensor output

(Voltage Vs. tiime)
B. Synchronization of signal condditioned VR sensor
signal output and PWM signal off the microcontroller
From the VR signal output, the AC signal is
converted to a square pulse signal which has several
square pulses separated by equaal delays, with a longer
delay period in the signal whicch signifies the missing
gear tooth. The pulse width modu ulation is a square pulsed
signal from the microcontroller. Both the signals needed
to be synchronized to initiate thee injection of the fuel at
suction TDC. Hence the synchro onization has to be done
from the end point of zero leveel voltage (longer delay
period) of the signal condition ned VR signal with the
rising edge of the PWM signal. This synchronization is
done by using flag=1 in the proggram. Figure 6 shows the
synchronized signal of the PWM M output (top side) and
VR sensor signal (below).

Figure 4 Embedded program for ECU devellopment

III. Results and discussion

Based on the developments of the ECU, the
results section consists of VR seensor output
characteristics, synchronization between pulse width
modulations provided to injector and signal conditioned
Figure 6 synchronization of signal condittioned VR sensor and PWM of
VR sensor output, and calibration of ECU. microcontroller (Voltage Vs. time)
 Table 3 Calibrated gasoline flow raate (ON/OFF) calculation
C. Calibration of ECU Ø ON/ Injector Caal. Meas. Error
Gasoline fuel flow rate was measureed by filling a OFF Voltage flo
ow flow (%)
duration (V) (E
E-6* (E-6*
graduated cylinder up to 10 ml with a consttant voltage of kgg/s) kg/s)
12 V supplied by a DC power supply byy operating the
engine with diesel fuel at 1500 RPM. Onnly the suction 0.1 5/75 0.31 37
7 35.8 3.25
TDC point was sensed and flow rate w was measured
0.2 11/69 0.87 73.9 71.8 2.90
outside the engine, while being operated iin diesel mode
of operation. Table 2 shows the gasolinne flow rates 0.3 16/64 1.29 111 110 0.65
injected through ECU with the measured vaalues deviating
0.4 22/58 1.8 14
48 152 -2.66
significantly from the calculated values. The deviation
was more severe for increasing equivalencce ratio. Hence 0.5 27/53 2.22 18
85 183 1.03
the ON/OFF time was corrected to reduuce the error.
Table 3 shows the gasoline flow ratte with ECU
IV. Conclusion
calibration.
The hardware -based desiggn of an ECU developed
Table 2 and Table 3 show the voltage value
in this work is able to achieve fuel flow variation with
available at the injector vary with respecct to the pulse
fixed fuel injection timing and for
f constant air flow rate
width modulation ON/OFF time whichh is a very
conditions. An Arduino ATMEG GA microcontroller was
significant factor for calibration of ECU. F
Figure 7 shows
used for pulse width modulation. This portable system is
the flow rates comparison of measuredd (Meas.) and
applied for research purpose. Thee ECU was calibrated by
calculated (Cal.) cases, for both caalibrated and
compensating the ON/OFF tim me of the pulse width
uncalibrated scenarios. It is evident that the calibrated
modulation at 1500 RPM of th he engine within 3.25%
mass flow rates are in good agreem ment with the
error margin.
calculated mass flow rates.
Acknowledgements
The present research work is funded by
Department of Science and Techn nology (DST), India.
The Authors are grateful to Mr Katta
K Sudheer and Mr. R.
Arumuga Nainar for their supporrt.

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