A novel low‐cost sensor for measuring cylinder pressure and improving performance of an internal combustion engine

Abstract

A new sensor has been developed which will enable engine pressure data to be available at a cost suitable for the average production vehicle. Unlike many previous devices this sensor will be suitable for the harsh environmental conditions of production vehicles themselves and not just the test environment. The sensor is small, extremely rugged and has a sufficiently wide bandwidth to be easily able to detect engine problems such as pre-ignition, miss-fire and malfunctioning engine components. Furthermore, the patented sensor technology does not require expensive electronic interfaces, but can use simple low-cost off the shelf components. The sensor's performance and limitations are discussed, based on real data from a single cylinder petrol engine. An analysis of the sensor output signals, showing both time and frequency domain data under varying load conditions, is also included. Electronic accessThe research register for this journal is available at

On the zero offset stability of thick film strain gauges

“…Recent commercial application of k 33 thick film strain gauges (Sion and Atkinson, 2001) has focused increased attention on their characteristics and their stability in particular. The results reported here show that careful design of these devices is essential in order to avoid some obvious problem areas.…”

Remote monitoring in industrial services: need-to-have instead of nice-to-have

“…Most of the previous research on RMS and sensor-based solutions have used a literature review as their main methodology, and they tend to be more technical and place less focus on service opportunities or the business value of the solutions (Kurada and Bradley, 1997;Everall et al, 2000;Sion and Atkinson, 2002;Owen et al, 2009;Vogl et al, 2009;Bogue, 2013;Gomes et al, 2013;Huang et al, 2014). However, some valuable single case studies have focussed on applying RMS to monitor an installed base of equipment at the customer's location (Nieva, 1999;Mori et al, 2008;Jonsson et al, 2009;Westergren, 2011;Westergren and Holmström, 2012), open innovation and trust as a key precondition for openness between the manufacturers and customers (Westergren, 2011;Westergren and Holmström, 2012), the use of IT solutions to provide value-adding services in industries, and the role of customers to become either cocreators of value or receivers of the created value (Jonsson et al, 2008(Jonsson et al, , 2009Kowalkowski and Brehmer, 2008).…”

Observations on the characteristics of thick film k33 strain sensors fabricated on steel substratesThis paper is based on a poster presentation made at the IMAPS 2001 Symposium, Baltimore.

“…Thick film (i.e. screen printed) strain gauges have recently seen successfully use in the fabrication of commercial pressure sensors (Ellis, 2000;Crescini et al, 1996) and force sensors (Sion et al, 1994a;Sion and Atkinson, 2001). However, it is not yet clear what the limits are in terms of the repeatability of these sensors, both device to device and when the same device is used in different situations.…”