Received February 23, 2017, accepted March 14, 2017, date of publication March 23, 2017, date of current

version June 19, 2018.

Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/ACCESS.2017.2687038

An Intelligent Dual-Voltage Driving Method and

Circuit For a Common Rail Injector for
Heavy-Duty Diesel Engines
JIAN XIONG AND HONG GU
School of Control Science and Engineering, Dalian University of Technology, Dalian 600015, China
Corresponding author: Jian Xiong (cd_xj@163.com)

ABSTRACT The control accuracies of the injection time and fuel quantity are the most important factors
affecting the fuel economy and emissions of an engine equipped with a high-pressure common-rail fuel
injection system. This paper presents an intelligent dual-voltage driving control that can simultaneously
reduce the response time of the injector and improve the accuracy of the injected fuel quantity. The designed
method employs a novel boost dc–dc circuit and does not require an additional independent dc–dc module
that includes an inductor switch MOSFET and a controller. During the time interval between two continuous
injections, the low-side MOSFET serves as a dc–dc switch, and the software in the controller controls the
dual-voltage dc–dc, which uses the injector as a charging inductor of the dc–dc module. The operation
principle of this intelligent driving circuit is described. Experimental results show that this method can not
only significantly decrease the response time of the injector but also improve the stability of the fuel injection
process.

INDEX TERMS Intelligent driving circuit, dual-voltages driving control, common-rail injector,
dc-dc charger, fuel injection control.

I. INTRODUCTION fuel pressure can be decoupled. This system is quite dif-

As global fuel consumption increases, the requirements
for environmental protection are becoming stricter. There-
fore, the fuel economy and emission performances of inter-
nal combustion engines need to be improved continuously.
Traditional mechanical fuel injection systems in diesel
engines cannot meet today’s emissions requirements. Thus,
electronic control technologies were invented for diesel
engines to overcome this shortcoming, and they notice-
ably improve diesel engine performance (Johnson, 2010).
Electronic fuel injection (EFI) systems for diesel engines
include an electronic unit pump system, an electronic dis-
tribution pump system, and a high-pressure common-rail
system. High-pressure common-rail systems are widely used
because of their excellent injection pressure and timing capa-
bilities. The injection rate can also be controlled flexibly
(Lee T, Reitz R D, 2003) [2], and the performance of the
diesel engine can be adjusted conveniently to achieve cer-
tain vehicle emission targets (Yuko Mito Waseda, Daisuke
Tanaka, 2003) [3].
The high-pressure common-rail system is the most
advanced EFI system by which the injection rate and the
ferent from traditional fuel injection systems. Moreover,
the fuel pressure can be controlled with high precision
by using advanced methods such as hydraulic control
(Li P, ZHANG Y, LI T et al. 2015) [4]. The injection pres-
sure and the injected fuel quantity can be accurately con-
trolled when a high-pressure common-rail system is used.
The overall fuel quantity injected in a cylinder is the inte-
gration of the injection rate. The shape of the injection
rate of a common-rail injector is approximately rectangular,
which differs from the ideal fuel injection rate, which is nor-
mally a wedge-shaped injection rate (Funai K, Yamaguchi T,
Itoh S. I et al. 1996) [5]. Therefore, the combustion efficiency
will decrease if the injection process is not optimized. Mul-
tiple injections are adopted to approximate an ideal wedge-
shaped injection rate. This flexible fuel injection system
is also beneficial for low-temperature combustion control
(Kashdan, Beatrice, 2007) [6], [7]. A typical high-pressure
common-rail fuel injection system is shown in Figure 1.
The traditional single-voltage driving circuit for common-
rail injectors is shown in Figure 2; this configuration usually
has a battery voltage supply. In the DC-DC converter, a power

2169-3536
2017 IEEE. Translations and content mining are permitted for academic research only.
VOLUME 5, 2017 Personal use is also permitted, but republication/redistribution requires IEEE permission. 27681
See http://www.ieee.org/publications_standards/publications/rights/index.html for more information.
 J. Xiong, H. Gu: Intelligent Dual-Voltage Driving Method and Circuit for a Common Rail Injector
FIGURE 1. High-pressure common rail system and traditional driving
circuit.
FIGURE 2. Traditional single-voltage driving circuit.
IC is required for the high-side solenoid drive (Sakamoto K,
Nunogawa Y, 1999) [8]. Delphi Co., Ltd. uses this driving
circuit. However, there are two shortcomings of this circuit.
The first is that the driving voltage varies with the battery,
which can cause large deviations in the fuel quantity. The
second is that the response time of the injector is slow and
unstable.
To achieve flexible injection rates in a common-rail
system, we need to improve the response time of the
injector to realize multiple injections during a short time.
A rapid response by the fuel injector is very impor-
tant. The factors determining the response time include
the mechanical design of the injectors (Dean C, Irena C,
Aleksandar S. et al. 2008) [9], the electromagnetic design
of the fast speed solenoid coil, and the optimization of the
driving circuit (Hideyuki W et al. 2005) [10]–[12]. Kong and
Li (2014) replaced the single coil of a high-speed solenoid
valve by parallel coils and found that both the delay time and
the switching time were decreased greatly [13]. In general,
the response time of the solenoid valve inside the fuel injec-
tor is approximately 200∼250 µs. For heavy-duty engines,
injectors with solenoid valves are widely adopted at present
due to their high reliabilities and low costs.
27682
It is very important for the common-rail injector to have
a flexible driving circuit, and it must have a high-efficiency
DC-DC boost converter. There are three main types of
DC-DC converters: linear regulation, switching capacitor,
and switching inductor. Zhang et al. (2015) introduced a
high-efficiency DC-DC boost converter for a miniaturized
microbial fuel cell [14]. Alonge and Rabbeni (2015) studied
the identification and robust control of a quadratic DC-DC
boost converter using the Hammerstein model [15]. The-
unisse et al. (2015) used a robust hybrid control algorithm
for a DC-DC boost converter, and the results show that the
robustness of the output voltage can be guaranteed in the
presence of noise and unmodeled dynamics [16]. However,
all of these methods require a large independent electrical
conductance to restore the electrical energies.
In this paper, the goal is to design a novel dual-voltage
injection driving control and a new driving circuit for a
common-rail injector with a high-speed solenoid valve based
on an established mathematical model. In particular, this
new driving circuit does not need an extra independent
DC-DC module with an inductor and MOSFET switch. In the
new driving method, utilizing the injection gap time between
two continuous injections, the low-side MOSFET works as a
DC-DC switch, and the injector serves as a charging inductor
to compose a DC-DC module temporarily. The designed
driving circuit can improve the response time of the solenoid
valve significantly. Meanwhile, this new design can reduce
system cost and improve working reliability. The main results
of this paper can provide not only a good reference for
the electronic control unit (ECU) design of a high-pressure
common-rail diesel engine but also a useful reference for GDI
engines (Tsai W C. 2014) [17].
II. WORKING PRINCIPLE OF THE
COMMON-RAIL INJECTOR
When the electronic control unit of a high-pressure common-
rail diesel engine is powered on and the injector starts to
inject fuel into the combustion chamber, the rate of increase
of the current of the solenoid valve should be large enough
until the current reaches the peak so that the armature of the
solenoid valve can be pulled up quickly. When the armature
is attracted to the coil, the air gap of the magnetic path is
decreased; thus, the magnetic reluctance drops. Afterwards,
the solenoid valve only requires a small holding current,
which can reliably maintain the armature at the attracted
position. When the solenoid valve is closed, a smaller holding
current is imposed to accelerate the later action speed. Mean-
while, such an injection control method can decrease both the
electric energy consumption of the battery and the heating
loss of the coil in the solenoid valve. In addition, fuel leakage
occurs between the needle valve and the plunger control. The
confluence of the leaking fuel and the return fuel from the
high-pressure fuel supply pump or the pressure control valve
flows back to the fuel tank through the fuel return pipe.
When a diesel engine is running, the high-pressure fuel
supply pump delivers fuel continuously to the common-rail,
VOLUME 5, 2017
J. Xiong, H. Gu: Intelligent Dual-Voltage Driving Method and Circuit for a Common Rail Injector
FIGURE 3. Stages of a traditional single-voltage injection process.
FIGURE 4. Current rising process of the injector solenoid.
and a high pressure is established in the rail. The work-
ing process of a traditional single-voltage driving injector is
illustrated in the following five stages. The corresponding
variation profiles of the main physical parameters are shown
in Figure 4. The five stages in one injection process are:
• 0: The injector is closed.
• 1: The current increases to the peak (start of injection).
• 2: The armature begins to lift (start of injection).
• 3: The armature moves up. The opening speed of the
nozzle needle valve depends on the fuel flow velocities
into the control chamber and out of the fuel drain hole.
When the piston valve reaches the top position, the
nozzle needle is fully opened and the fuel is injected into
the combustion chamber with a very high pressure.
• 4: The armature moves down to the seated position.
If the solenoid valve is not energized, the armature moves
downward by the acting force of the armature spring. Finally,
the armature pushes the pivot ball to seal the fuel drain hole.
Once the fuel drain hole is closed, the fuel from the high-
pressure common-rail flows into the control chamber where
a high pressure is built up accordingly. This high pressure is
almost consistent with that of the common rail. As a result,
an increase in the force acting on the end surface of the
valve piston is generated. If the summation of this force
and the nozzle needle spring force is greater than the fuel
force generated by the bearing cavity, the nozzle needle valve
is closed. The closing speed of the nozzle needle depends
on the velocity that the fuel flows into the control chamber.
VOLUME 5, 2017
Once the nozzle needle moves to the bottom of the sealing
position, the injection process stops.
III. SOLENOID AND ITS TRADITIONAL DRIVING CIRCUIT
A. SOLENOID VALVE
The solenoid valve of the injector must operate with high
speed. Because the solenoid valve has certain inductance,
when it is energized with a voltage, the current in the solenoid
cannot immediately jump to the stable current Iw . The rising
process of the current is shown in Figure 4. In this study,
the time t01 during which the current of the solenoid grows
from 0 to Icd is called the attracting time. The magnetic force
increases to a level that can pull up the armature within the
attracting time.
When the coil current increases to Icd , the electromagnetic
force Fd is greater than the difference in the acting force
between the armature spring and the fuel pressure, and the
armature begins to move up. Time t02 , during which the
armature begins to move to the fully closed position, is called
the valve action time. Therefore, the total response time
of the solenoid t includes two parts: the attracting time t01
and the valve action time t02 .
When the coil is imposed with a voltage, the volt-
age balance equation during the current rising process is
expressed by
dw
U = iR + dt (1)
where U is the coil voltage, i is the solenoid current, R is the
total resistance of the solenoid coil, w is the total magnetic
flux of the coil, and t is the time.
Supposing the armature position is fixed and the magnetic
circuit is not saturated, the coil inductance can be considered
a constant. Thus, the total magnetic flux is denoted by
w = Li (2)
And
U = iR + L dw (3)
dt
The solution of this equation is
t
i = Iw (1 − e− T ) (4)
where Iw is a steady-state current of the coil and Iw = U /R;
T is the constant time of the solenoid coil, which is related to
the rising rate and the initial current and T = L/R.
Let i = Icd . Substitute this into Eq. (4) and taking the eddy
current effect into account, a coefficient α is used (generally,
α is within 1.1∼1.3.), and thus, the attracting time is obtained.
Iw
t01 = αT ln (5)
Iw -Icd
If the armature starts to move, the magnetic flux increases
because this movement causes the air gap to gradually
decrease. The change in the magnetic flux generates a
counter electromotive force (EMF) in the coil. The generated
EMF and the self-induced EMF prevent current growth in
27683
 J. Xiong, H. Gu: Intelligent Dual-Voltage Driving Method and Circuit for a Common Rail Injector

the coil when the coil inductance varies. At this moment, the
voltage balance equation of the solenoid coil and the motion
equation of the armature are expressed by
U = iR + L dw dL
dt + i dt (6)
2
Fd − Ff = m ddt 2x (7)
where Fd is the electromagnetic force, Ff is the electromag-
net reaction force, m is the total mass of the armature and
other moving parts, and x is the displacement of the armature.
These two forces can be measured on an injector testing
bench. The first term on the right of the voltage balance
equation is the self-induction electromotive force. The second
term is the back electromotive force when the inductance FIGURE 6. Dual-voltage driving method.

changes. As a result, the current growth time is less than
that of an exponential function. Then, the action time of the
solenoid valve can be determined by
q tery voltage, which can be seen from the traditional driving
t02 = F2mx d
(8)
d −Ff
FIGURE 5. Traditional single-voltage driving method.
B. NORMAL SINGLE-VOLTAGE DRIVING CIRCUIT
Although the structure and working principle of the common-
rail injector is similar, the response time and the fuel quantity
precision of the designed dual-voltage driving method are
quite different from that of the single-voltage driver because
there are many mechanical and electronic parameters that
can affect the accuracy of the fuel injection quantity and its
response time. In this study, we first analyze the response time
and the precision of the single-voltage driving method. The
traditional single-voltage driving approach for a common-rail
injector is shown in Figure 5, and the corresponding physical
stages are already described in Figure 4.
As measured on an injector test bench, the electromagnetic
force Fd for a designed common-rail injector is 78 N, while
the electromagnet reaction force Ff is 50 N. The inductance
of the injector is measured as 165 µH, and the resistance is
0.2531 . The driving voltage during the attracting time is
24 V, so according to Eq. (4) Iw = 98.42 A. Meanwhile,
according to Eq. (4), T=916.6 µs. Substituting these values
into Eq. (5) and setting Icd to 25 A, the attracting time
t01 is 239.4 µs where α is set to an average value of 1.2.
The corresponding current and voltage of the solenoid valve
using a PWM modulated signal are shown in Figure 6. In the
single-voltage driving method, the driving voltage is the bat-
schematic shown in Figure 2.
Supposed that the battery voltage is steady at 24 V, the driv-
ing current and voltage are shown by real lines in Figure 5.
However, in practical working conditions, the battery voltage
will vary with the capacity or the working temperature. Thus,
the attracting time t01 will not be kept at a fixed time and
will results in an unstable response time of the injector. The
situation is denoted by the dashed lines in Figure 5.
C. DUAL-VOLTAGE DRIVING CIRCUIT
If the driving voltage in the first stage is increased from
24 V to 48 V and the current rises to the same peak value
of 25 Amperes, the energizing time will be much shorter
than that with 24 V. The response time of the first stage will
decrease from 239.40 µs to 110.5 µs. The driving current
and voltage of the dual-voltage driving method are shown in
Figure 6.
The normal dual-voltage driving circuit is shown in
Figure 7, where an independent DC-DC boost module is used
to set up the high voltage. The DC-DC driving circuit consists
of a DC-DC controller (U1), a switch MOSFET Q7, a diode
D1, and a boost capacitor C1. By using a DC-DC booster, a
more stable and regular boosting high voltage can be obtained
no matter what the battery voltage is. Thus, the response time
and the accuracy of injected fuel quantity will not be affected
by the variation of the battery voltage. However, this normal
driving circuit requires some more electronic components and
a larger hardware area of the ECU, which will increase the
cost and decrease the system reliability. In this study, a new
dual-voltage driving method is introduced that does not need
the additional inductor and switch shown in the red dashed
box in Figure 7.
IV. DESIGNED INGELLIGENT DUAL-VOLTAGE
DRIVING CONTROL
A. DUAL-VOLTAGE SELF-CHARGING DRIVING CIRCUIT
WITH NO ADDITIONAL DC-DC BOOST CONVERTER
In this study, an intelligent dual-voltage driving circuit is
designed. Here, the inductor of the typical DC-DC boost

27684 VOLUME 5, 2017

J. Xiong, H. Gu: Intelligent Dual-Voltage Driving Method and Circuit for a Common Rail Injector
FIGURE 7. Normal dual-voltage driving circuit.
FIGURE 8. Designed dual-voltage driving circuit.
circuit is replaced by the injector’s solenoid coil shown
in Figure 8. At the same time, the microprocessor of the
ECU is used as the DC-DC controller to sample the solenoid
current and control the boosted voltage by using the low-side
MOSFET as the switch of the DC-DC booster. Hence, in this
design, no additional electronic components are needed to
implement the DC-DC boost converter.
In this design, we use the dual-voltage driving method for
the injector solenoid to accelerate the current rising process.
The boost voltage can be set to a very high voltage, even up
to 80 V. In this paper, we use only 48 V for the boost voltage
because the designed injector solenoid cannot bear a higher
voltage.
The schematic in Figure 8 can supply two different volt-
ages to drive the injector. First, if the injector is required to be
open, the first step is to set the boost MOSFET of the high side
on. Then, the low-side MOSFET Cy1 is also open. The 48 V
boost voltage is energized to the injector. Once the current
arrives at the peak value of 25 A, the first step is completed,
which is shown as ň in Figure 9. The second step holds the
low-side MOSFET open, shuts the boost MOSFET of the
high side, and opens the PWM MOSFET when the current
drops to the hold current of 12 A. In this step, the hold current
will be controlled to 12 A by regulating the duty of the PWM
signal. This situation will remain to the end of the injection
VOLUME 5, 2017
FIGURE 9. Designed non-independent DC-DC boost circuit
for the first cylinder and the process is shown as in Figure 8.
After these two steps are completed, the driving circuit waits
to drive for the next cylinder.
B. DC-DC MODEL
As shown in Figure 9, taking the injection process of the
first cylinder as an example, during the injection time gap
between two cylinders, the high-side boost voltage switch
is shut down, and the high-side PWM MOSFET is open.
Accordingly, the current flow path is shown as the red lines in
Figure 9. Under this working condition, the equivalent circuit
model of the DC-DC boost converter is shown in Figure 10,
where it is obvious that those components composed a typical
boost converter.
FIGURE 10. Equivalent circuit of the designed DC-DC booster.
Figure 10 is the equivalent circuit of Figure 9 when the
designed dual-voltage driving circuit operates in the time-
divided non-independent DC-DC boost mode. In Figure 10,
the injector is represented by the inductor L, and C1 is the
DC-DC boost capacitor. The release diode in the injection
process is a free-wheeling diode in the DC-DC circuit. The
RL is the impedance including the resistance and reactance
of the injector.
When the ECU is powered on, the microprocessor samples
the boost voltage (typically 48 V) from the sample divider
resistances R15 and R16. If it does not arrive at the set
27685
 J. Xiong, H. Gu: Intelligent Dual-Voltage Driving Method and Circuit for a Common Rail Injector

FIGURE 11. Control algorithm of the intelligent dual-voltage driver.

point, the MOSFET QH1 of the high side is open to connect

the injector to the battery voltage. Then, the microprocessor
chooses the low-side driving MOSFFT as a switch in the
boost DC-DC converter (the Q1 signal is at the high level
when the first cylinder is chosen).
The detailed control flow chart of the designed intelligent
dual-voltage driving method is shown in Figure 11. At first,
the control software [18] samples the boost voltage. If it is
lower than 48 V, the system starts the DC-DC converter.
At this time, the controller opens the QH1, using it as a con-
ductor, and chooses the low-side MOSFET as a switch. The
component D1 serves as an ideal diode. The control software
will choose the low side MOSFET of the next cylinder if the
injection process of the current cylinder is done. If all of the
cylinders in this bank complete, the next bank is opened to
choose another low-side MOSFET.
As shown in Figure 12 (a), the Ire must be sufficiently low
in the case of an open. Figure 12 (b) shows the case when FIGURE 12. Working principle of the intelligent dual-voltage driver.
QH1 is conducting and the current is being drawn through (a) Solenoid current and voltage profiles. (b) Low side MOSFET is on.
the inductor (here, the injector is regarded as the inductor). (c) Low side MOSFET is off.

At this time, energy is being stored in the inductor L, which Mode 2 (S=1, D=0):
is also the injector in the designed intelligent dual-voltage 
driving circuit. The working process can be divided into four 
 S=1

modes depending on the state of the diode and the switch d = 0

(THEUNISSE T A F, 2015). Considering the switching ele- d 1 (10)
 dt vc = − Rc vc
ments (D is an idea diode and S is the low-side switch Q1),


 d iL = − E

the equations of these four modes are: dt L
Mode 1 (S=0, D=1): Mode 3 (S=0, D=0):
 

 S=0 
 S=0
 
d = 1
 d = 0

d 1 1 (9) d 1 (11)


 dt vc = − Rc vc + c iL 

 dt vc = − Rc vc
 d iL = − 1 vc + E
  d iL = 0

dt L L dt

27686 VOLUME 5, 2017

J. Xiong, H. Gu: Intelligent Dual-Voltage Driving Method and Circuit for a Common Rail Injector
Mode 4 (S=1, D=1):
 frequency of the switch fsw = 1/T .
S=1



d = 1
 Cout
d (12)
 dt vc = 0


 d iL = E
 and the Schottky diode D1 is forward biased, as shown in
dt L Figure 12 (c). The energy stored in the inductor is pumped
where S=0 indicates that Q1 is switched off, and D=0 indi-
cates that the diode is shut off. R is the impedance of the
injector solenoid.
Combining the operation conditions together with the dif-
ferential equations for each mode according to the state of the
switch, it is clear that Mode 2 and Mode 4 can be combined
into a single mode with the same dynamics, and Mode 1 and
Mode 3 can also be combined into a single mode; these modes
are shown in Figure 12 (b) and (c), respectively.
FIGURE 13. Designed ECU hardware including the intelligent driver.
When the MOSFET Q1 stops conducting, the inductor
voltage flies back or reverses because the current through the
inductor cannot change instantaneously. The voltage across
the inductor increases to a value that is higher than the
combined voltage across the diode and the output capacitor.
As soon as this value is reached, the diode starts conduct-
ing, and the voltage that appears across the output capacitor
is higher than the input voltage. In Figure 13, the switch
MOSFET is controlled by a PWM signal to control the boost
chopper, where the maximum PWM duty must be limited.
During the first half cycle shown in Figure 12 (b), the
internal power FET Q1 turns on, and the Schottky diode D1
is reversely biased and cuts off the current flow to the output.
The output current is supplied from the output capacitor.
If the voltage across the inductor (injector) is Uin , the inductor
current ramps up at a rate of Uin /L and L is the inductance
of the injector. The inductance is magnetized, and energy is
stored in the inductor. The change in the inductor current is
obtained by
1I1 = ton Uin
L (13)
D
ton = fsw (14)
VOLUME 5, 2017
where D is the duty cycle, D = ton /(ton + toff ), and fsw is the
1Uout = ton Iout
(15)
During the second half cycle, the power FET Q1 turns off,
out to charge the output capacitor. The Schottky diode side
of the inductor is clamped to above the output voltage by a
Schottky diode. Therefore, the voltage decrease across the
inductor equals Uin −Uout . The change in the inductor current
during the second cycle is
toff (Uin −Uout )
1I2 = L (16)
1toff = (1−D)
(17)
fsw
For the steady operation conditions, the same amount of
energy stored in the inductor must be taken out. The change
in inductor current during the two cycles must be the same.
1I1 +1I2 = 0 (18)
Substituting Eqs. (13) and (16) into (18), we get
Uout −Uin
D= Uout (19)
For example, if the boost voltage Uout is set to 48 V and
the input voltage Uin is 24 V, according to Eq. (19), D is
50%. At this time, the MCU outputs a PWM signal whose
duty is 50% to control the MOSFET cyc1e. Normally, the
Uout is a constant value, but the Uin is a varied value, so the
MCU should sample the input voltage to adjust the PWM
duty, and a higher accuracy can be obtained by this closed-
loop control method. On the other hand, the current of the
recharger should be lower than the hold current of 12 A.
According to Eq. (5), the attracting time t01 is 110.58 µs,
where Iw equals to 94.82 A and Icd is 12 A.
If we want to limit the maximum DC-DC recharge current,
such as lower than the hold current of 12 A, we must control
the current response time to less than 1058 ms, which requires
the recharge frequency to be greater than 9447.6 Hz. Taking
into account the influences of the ripple wave and the boost
capacitor, the recharge frequency is set to 20 kHz.
C. ECU HARDWARE DESIGN
According to the designed dual-voltage driving circuit, a
real ECU was developed in which the microprocessor is an
MPC5634M chip manufactured by Freescale Semiconductor
Company. It has 96 KB RAM and 2 MB FLASH. The devel-
oped ECU has 16 channels of analog signal input, 20 channels
of digital signal input, 1 channel for the crank shaft posi-
tion sensor signal input, 1 channel for the camshaft position
sensor signal input, 1 channel for the vehicle rotation speed
signal input, 1 channel for the air flow frequency input. The
main output channels include 6-cylinder injection controls
(peak injection current > 25 Amperes, holding current >
15 Amperes - these currents can be adjusted and support
at least 5 injections for each injection process), 1 channel
27687
 J. Xiong, H. Gu: Intelligent Dual-Voltage Driving Method and Circuit for a Common Rail Injector

FIGURE 14. Experimental verification using an injector test bench.

for the EGR valve driver, 1 channel for the engine rotation
speed output, and 2 channels for the H-bridge driver with each
channel’s current greater than 5 Amperes. The printed circuit
board (PCB) of the designed ECU is shown in Figure 13.

V. EXPERIMENTAL RESULTS
To validate the feasibility of the designed dual-voltage driving
method, an experimental test was performed on an injector
test bench manufactured by French EFS Co., Ltd., which is
shown in Figure 14. An EMI2 flow meter was used to mea-
sure the instantaneous volume of the fuel quantity injected
stroke-by-stroke.
In the test, the boost voltage of the first stage was set to
48 V, according to Eq. (4), Iw was 189.65 Amperes, and T
was 651.9 µs. Then, substituting these two values into Eq. (5)
and setting Icd equal to 18 Amperes (this value depends on
the characteristics of the injector), the attracting time t01 was
determined to be 110.5 µs. The measured solenoid current
profile is shown in Figure 15. The measured currents and the
attracting time are very close to the estimated value, which
indicates that the designed dual-voltage driving method is
feasible. The response time of the first stage is shown in
Figure 15 (b) and (c). These figures show that under different
battery voltage conditions, the first stage response time is
the same. The injection rate profile with different battery
voltage conditions is shown in Figure 15 (d), which indicates
that under different battery voltage conditions, the injector
operates approximately the same.
To evaluate the injection performance improvement of the
designed dual-voltage driving method, more tests were con-
ducted on the EFS injector test bench. For each test, differ-
ent fuel pressures of the common rail and energizing times
(including the attracting time and the duration of the hold- FIGURE 15. Results of the solenoid current and injection rate of the
dual-voltage driving method. (a) Current Curve .(b) Response Time
ing current) were selected when the pump speed was set to (Battery voltage = 18 Volts) . (c) Response Time (Battery
700 RPM, and the corresponding injected fuel quantities were voltage = 24 Volts) .(d) Relevant Injection Rate.
recorded. In contrast, the results from a traditional single-
voltage driving method were also measured. The results of 800, 1200, and 1600 bar, respectively. The standard deviation
the measured standard deviation of the injected fuel quantities of the injected fuel quantity can be decreased significantly by
are listed in Tables 1 to 3. using the designed intelligent dual-voltage driving method,
In the tests, three typical work conditions of a diesel which means the cycle variation of diesel engines can be
engine were selected. The corresponding rail pressures were reduced, and a higher emission standard can be achieved.

27688 VOLUME 5, 2017

J. Xiong, H. Gu: Intelligent Dual-Voltage Driving Method and Circuit for a Common Rail Injector
TABLE 1. Standard deviation of the injected fuel quantity when the rail
pressure is 800 bar.
TABLE 2. Standard deviation of the injected fuel quantity when the rail
pressure is 1200 bar.
TABLE 3. Standard deviation of the injected fuel quantity when the rail
pressure is 1600 bar.
VI. CONCLUSIONS
Compared with a traditional single-voltage driving control
method, the designed intelligent dual-voltage driving method
can not only accelerate the response time of the fuel injec-
tor significantly but can also improve the operation stabil-
ity of the injector. In particular, the driving method in this
study designed a novel boost circuit, which needs neither a
DC-DC controller nor its switch MOSFET and the indepen-
dent inductor. The driving circuit presented in this paper can
further improve the reliability of the hardware and reduce sys-
tem cost. Moreover, the designed intelligent driving method
can adapt its boost voltage by setting the corresponding oper-
ation parameters such as the peak current and the holding
current in the control software to fit different injectors.
REFERENCES
[1] T. V. Johnson, ‘‘Review of diesel emissions and control,’’
SAE Tech. Paper 2010-01-0301, 2010.
[2] T. Lee and R. D. Reitz, ‘‘The effects of split injection and swirl on a
HSDI diesel engine equipped with a common-rail injection system,’’ SAE
Tech. Paper 2003-01-0349, 2003.
[3] Y. M. Waseda and D. Tanaka, ‘‘The effect of intake, injection param-
eters and fuel properties on diesel combustion and emissions,’’ SAE
Tech. Paper 2003-01-1793, 2003.
[4] P. Li, Y. Zhang, and T. Li, ‘‘Elimination of fuel pressure fluctuation and
multi-injection fuel mass deviation of high pressure common-rail fuel
injection system,’’ Chin. J. Mech. Eng., vol. 28, no. 2, pp. 294–306, 2015.
[5] K. Funai, T. Yamaguchi, and S. Itoh, ‘‘Injection rate shaping technology
with common rail fuel system (ECD-U2),’’ SAE Tech. Paper 960107,
1996.
VOLUME 5, 2017
[6] J. Kashdan, P. Anselmi, and B. Walter, ‘‘Advanced injection strategies
for controlling low-temperature diesel combustion and emissions,’’ SAE
Tech. Paper 2009-01-1962, 2009.
[7] C. Beatrice, ‘‘Experimental analysis of the operating parameter influence
on the application of low temperature combustion in the modern diesel
engines,’’ SAE Tech. Paper 2007-01-1839, 2007.
[8] K. Sakamoto, Y. Nunogawa, K. Satonaka, T. Kouda, and S. Horiuchi,
‘‘An intelligent power IC with reverse battery protection for fast-switching
high-side solenoid drive,’’ IEEE Trans. Electron Devices, vol. 46, no. 8,
pp. 1775–1781, Aug. 1999.
[9] C. Dean, C. Irena, and S. Aleksandar, ‘‘Improved performance of the elec-
tromagnetic fuel injector solenoid actuator using a modelling approach,’’
Int. J. Appl. Electromagn. Mechan., vol. 27, no. 4, pp. 251–273, 2008.
[10] W. Hideyuki and I. Shinya, ‘‘Development of compact and high per-
formance fuel injector using electromagnetic field simulation,’’ SAE
Tech. Paper 2005-01-0019, 2005.
[11] M. Piron, P. Sangha, G. Reid, T. J. E. Miller, and D. M. Ionel, ‘‘Rapid
computer-aided design method for fast-acting solenoid actuators,’’ IEEE
Trans. Ind. Appl., vol. 35, no. 5, pp. 991–999, Sep. 1999.
[12] W. C. Tsai, Z. H. Wu, P. C. Yu, and S. B. Chang, ‘‘Design of electrical
driving circuits for a high-pressure fuel injector and control of fuel injection
quantities by using the polynomial curve fitting method,’’ Int. J. Intell. Inf.
Process., vol. 2, no. 2, pp. 60–73, 2011.
[13] X. Kong and S. Li, ‘‘Dynamic performance of high speed solenoid valve
with parallel coils,’’ Chin. J. Mech. Eng., vol. 27, no. 4, pp. 816–821, 2014.
[14] X. Zhang, H. Ren, and S. Pyo, ‘‘A high-efficiency DC-DC boost converter
for a miniaturized microbial fuel cell,’’ IEEE Trans. Power Electron.,
vol. 30, no. 4, pp. 2313–2327, Apr. 2015.
[15] F. Alonge and R. Rabbeni, ‘‘Identification and robust control of
a quadratic DC/DC boost converter by Hammerstein model,’’ IEEE
Trans. Ind. Appl., vol. 51, no. 5, pp. 3975–3985, Sep./Oct. 2015,
doi: 10.1109/TIA.2015.2416154.
[16] T. A. F. Theunisse, J. Chai, R. G. Sanfelice, and W. P. M. H. Heemels,
‘‘Robust global stabilization of the DC-DC boost converter via hybrid
control,’’ IEEE Trans. Circuits Syst. I, Reg. Papers, vol. 62, no. 4,
pp. 1052–1061, Apr. 2015.
[17] W. C. Tsai, ‘‘Development of a high-pressure injector driving circuit for
controlling the air-fuel ratio of GDI engines,’’ in Proc. Int. Symp. Comput.
Consumer Control, Taichung, Taiwan, Jun. 2014, pp. 1275–1278.
[18] J. Schaeuffele and T. Zurawka, ‘‘Automotive software engineering: Prin-
ciples, processes, methods, and tools,’’ SAE Int., Warrendale, PA, USA,
Tech. Rep., 2005.
[19] F. W. Yan, P. Zhang, and C. Q. Du, ‘‘Novel evaluation method of fuel
consumption and emission for heavy-duty hybrid electric vehicles,’’ Int.
J. Autom. Technol., vol. 15, no. 5, pp. 773–779, Aug. 2014.
JIAN XIONG received the B.S and M.S. degrees in
electronic engineering and computer Science from
UESTC in 1997 and 2005 respectively. He is cur-
rently pursuing the Ph.D. degree in control theory
and control engineering with the Dalian University
of Technology. His research interests include wire-
less communication and automotive electronics.
HONG GU received the bachelor’s and master’s
degree from the Shengyang University of Technol-
ogy in 1982 and 1984, respectively, and the Ph.D.
degree from Zhejiang University in 1990. He is
currently a Professor with the Dalian University of
Technology. His research interests include control
theory and control engineering, machine learning,
big data analysis, and data mining.
27689