Development of Spark Energy Measurement System for Electronic-controlled Automotive Engine

The spark energy measurement system was successfully developed for accelerating the development process of the electronic-controlled unit and optimizing the combustion process of the engine. The control and monitor interface communicated with the MCU of ignition module through serial communication port, the operation parameters could be monitored in real time. The speed signal was input to the MCU, and it was adopted as baseline for calculating the ignition advance angle and ignition timing. The transistor was driven by ignition control signal which was output by MCU to control the power on-off of the primary circuit. Reference to SAE J973-1999 standard, a Zener string was introduced as simulation load. The output voltage of secondary coil and current of secondary circuit were acquired, and the output energy of secondary coil could be calculated by the integral of the product of spark voltage and spark current that are varying with time. The output energy of secondary coil was adopted as a standard to evaluate the spark energy. Test results show that, for the ignition module developed for JIA65Q5, the spark energy can be evaluated effectively and quantitatively.