Case Studies in Thermal Engineering 16 (2019) 100552

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Case Studies in Thermal Engineering

journal homepage: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/csite

Comparison of performance using wide-band versus narrow-band

oxygen sensors in gasoline engines
Yousef S.H. Najjar *, Abad Alrahman W.H. Almardini **, Amro J.A. Sawan ***
Jordan University of Science and Technology, Irbid, Jordan

A R T I C L E I N F O A B S T R A C T

Keywords: Spark ignition engines are the most widespread in the automotive industry, they consume more
Narrow-band and wide-band oxygen sensors than 35% of the liquid fuel. Therefore, it is of a great value to reduce this percentage the mini­
Air fuel ratio mum possible. Using electronics and direct injection with the wide-band oxygen sensor may be
Gasoline direct injection engine
the technology to solve this problem since traditional electronic control systems use reference
Lean SI engines operation
Closed-loop lambda control
stoichiometry to regulate air fuel ratios, using the wide-band oxygen sensor permits the use of
reference air fuel ratio values over a wider range.
Experiments were carried out on a 4-cylinder 1.8 L displacement volume Mitsubishi 4G93
DOHC GDI using the narrow-band lambda oxygen sensor and the wide-band lambda oxygen
sensor, utilizing a lean air-fuel ratio. Road load test conditions were considered. A dynamometer
was used in addition to a scan tool and an exhaust gas analyzer. Development extensive work was
carried out to correct the single-band to wide-band.
The obtained results show that using the wide-band oxygen sensor improves brake specific fuel
consumption by 8.8–11.6% between 25% and 100% throttle openings. Whereas, HC and NOx
emission gases were reduced by 19.4% and 27.3%, respectively.

1. Introduction

With the increase in energy demand and the expected shortage of the fossil fuel with time, the need for sustainable resources
increases. Hence, this is initially handled by using clean fuels [1], utilization of waste heat [2–6] and adopting different configurations
[7–9], where resources and environment are conserved.
The SI engine is the largest source of motive power in the world. Climbing oil prices and strict emission regulations demand
significant efforts on the part of researchers. Targeting better engine control will lead to more sophisticated engine management
systems to save fuel, reduce cost, and protect the environment [10].
The development of the intake and exhaust systems improves the SI engine by optimizing the air flow into the engine’s cylinders
[11]. A single cylinder reciprocating engine test rig was used to measure power output, specific fuel consumption, exhaust gas tem­
perature and energy balance for various speeds, air-fuel ratios and compression ratios with gasoline and diesel as fuels [12]. The gas
dynamics of the flowing gases, including the pressure waves and the boundary layer thickness of the flow due to friction, play an

* Corresponding author.
** Corresponding author.
*** Corresponding author.
E-mail addresses: y_najjar@hotmail.com (Y.S.H. Najjar), awalmardini@gmail.com (A.A.W.H. Almardini), amrosawan@outlook.com
(A.J.A. Sawan).

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.csite.2019.100552
Received 1 May 2019; Received in revised form 10 July 2019; Accepted 16 October 2019
Available online 22 October 2019
2214-157X/© 2019 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license
(http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).
Y.S.H. Najjar et al. Case Studies in Thermal Engineering 16 (2019) 100552

Nomenclature

AFR air fuel ratio

AFRstoich stoichiometric air fuel ratio
bsfc brake specific fuel consumption [g/kWh]
CNC computer numerical control
CO carbon monoxide
CO2 carbon dioxide
ECT engine coolant temperature [oC]
ECU engine control unit
EGO exhaust gas oxygen sensor
GDI gasoline direct injection
HC unburnt hydrocarbons
Ip pump current [A]
IAT inlet air temperature [oC]
MAF mass air flow sensor [Hz]
MAP manifold absolute pressure [kPa]
NOx nitrogen oxides
OBD2 automotive on-board diagnostics second generation
TPS throttle position sensor

Greek letters
ηaux auxiliary efficiency [%]
ηm mechanical efficiency [%]
ϕ equivalence ratio
λ excess air ratio, 1/ϕ

important role in improving the engine’s volumetric efficiency, power, and fuel economy [13].
Precise λ control is important for improving fuel economy and reducing exhaust emissions for internal combustion engines. Ac­
curate estimation of cylinder air charge, and the disposition of measurement time delay from the oxygen sensor, remove limits on the
achievable feedback performance [14].
Control strategies for direct injection engines and other lean burn engines operating with excess air (λ > 1) using alternative sensor
concept reduces emissions and fuel consumption [15]. Lean gasoline engines offer greater fuel economy than common stoichiometric
gasoline engines. Air-fuel equivalence ratio was found to be one of the most important parameters in controlling the NOx production by
optimizing air-fuel ratio and spark timing while utilizing acceleration load conditions [16].
A wide-band λ sensor was developed consisting of both n-type and p-type sensing portions, which share a common electrode. The n-
type semiconductor layer and the p-type layer attach directly to the common electrode, but they are not in physical contact with each
other. A lateral gap exists between the n-type layer and the p-type layer which leads to a more responsive oxygen sensing [17].
This research, development efforts will be focused on changing the old narrow-band lambda oxygen sensor with the wide-band
oxygen sensor to get better dynamic range sensing capabilities which will reduce the fuel consumption and effect the engine’s per­
formance at lean operation. Also, this study will examine the requirements of upgrading engines that are equipped with the traditional
narrow band oxygen sensor to the wide band oxygen sensor despite technical challenges.

2. Experimental work

Test runs were made at selected throttle openings, from 100% (full throttle) to 25%, using both the narrow-band oxygen sensor and

Fig. 1. Experimental work procedure flow chart.

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Y.S.H. Najjar et al. Case Studies in Thermal Engineering 16 (2019) 100552

the wide-band oxygen sensor, simulating road-load conditions. The experimental work procedure is illustrated in Fig. 1.
Fuel consumption was measured using a sensitive weight scale placed below the fuel tank and was double checked using flow
sensors, as a result the engine’s bsfc was calculated using the following equation [18]:
m_ f
bsfc ¼ � 3600 (1)
Pb
The mechanical and auxiliary losses in the transmission are estimated to be 4–6%, the cooling system, ignition system, and other
engine components losses are estimated to be 5–6% [19]. The engine power is calculated as:
Dyn: power
Engine power ¼ (2)
ηm � ηaux

2.1. The engine

In this work, a 4-cylinder Mitsubishi 4G93 DOHC GDI engine with a displacement volume of 1834 CC, bore � stroke (81 � 89) mm,
compression ratio 12, was used to run road load tests using the narrow-band sensor and the wide-band sensor to compare the engine’s
performance, bsfc and exhaust gas emissions.

2.2. The dynamometer

The Nebraska hydraulic dynamometer (NEB400) of 100-kW capacity was used. Power and torque curves were recorded during the
tests to compare the performance of the engine between the narrow-band and wide-band sensors.
To make sure the dynamometer is absorbing all the engine’s power, the transmission’s differential had to be disengaged, the main
gear and the output gear were welded together and sealed, as one input shaft will be used.
An adapter plate was designed, and CNC machined to connect the output shaft of the engine to the dynamometer’s input shaft. A
hanger bearing was mounted on the engine’s output shaft to support it and to eliminate shaft whirling. Fig. (2) shows the final setup of
the engine arrangement, the ECUs, the dynamometer, the gas analyzer, and the scan tool that will be mentioned.

2.3. The ECU development

The original ECU managing the engine’s operation is built to only function using the narrow-band oxygen sensor. To connect the
wide-band sensor, first, a fully standalone programable ECU was connected with the engine’s wiring harness to control all systems
running the engine. To suit the engine’s running conditions, the ECU was tuned by trial and error to have the smoothest running
conditions, this included setting values for the fuel and ignition tables, but due to the engine’s complex GDI system, there was no
control over fuel pressure at high rpms, where fuel pressure is regulated by a fuel solenoid connected to a high pressure fuel pump.
Furthermore, any offset value of ignition would result in knocking leading to engine failure.

2.4. The ECU’s configuration

To solve the previous problems, the fuel injection system was controlled separately using the programmable ECU whereas the
ignition system, high pressure fuel pumps and all other systems were controlled using the original ECU.

Fig. 2. Schematic diagram of the final test setup showing the engine and the main testing devices.

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Y.S.H. Najjar et al. Case Studies in Thermal Engineering 16 (2019) 100552

To allow fuel corrections that depend on the engine’s condition, multiple sensor readings were shared between the two ECU’s.
These readings were necessary for the programable ECU to manage fuel cranking enrichment, post-start enrichment and IAT cor­
rections. The Fuel system works in a closed loop control which gets feedback from the oxygen sensor, the feedback is either digital or
analog depending on the oxygen sensor type used. This difference in feedback signal changes how the fuel system reacts to changes in
oxygen concentration in the exhaust line. Fig. (3) shows final setup of the ECU’s and the various sensors used.

2.5. Engine tuning

To control the amount of fuel injected to the engine at any speed and load combinations, the secondary ECU was tuned. Mainly, the
injectors pulse width values were set based on the AFR values. The same injectors pulse width values were used with both narrow-band
and wide-band oxygen sensors. First, during the narrow-band oxygen operation, these values will be corrected to only target AFR
values around 14.7. Second, during the wide-band sensor operation, these values can be corrected to target any desired AFR value,
provided that the lean region will be targeted in this work. The techniques explained previously are illustrated in Fig. 4.

2.6. The gas analyzer

Emissions gas analyzer (NHA-506EN) with response time less than 10 s was used in this research. It can measure the following
emissions: NOx ppm, CO%, HC ppm, O2%, and CO2%. The indication error of the gas analyzer differs when measuring different gases,
Table 1 shows all the indication errors of the measured gases. All other parameters were taken into the comparison and recorded using
the scan tool. The data collected from the scan tool are the following: ECT, MAP, RPM, EGO, IAT, and TPS.

2.7. The scan tool

An automotive scan tool was used to record the engines various sensor’s readings during tests, connected to the OBD2 port, the scan
tool provides access to live data stream from all the sensors connected with the original ECU.

3. Results and discussion

3.1. Performance and fuel consumption

The data listed in Appendix A and B, were used to compare the engine’s performance using the narrow-band and the wide-band
lambda oxygen sensors. As shown in Fig. (3), using the wide-band lambda oxygen sensor improves the fuel consumption by
8.8–11.6%. The wide-band lambda oxygen sensor can respond to small changes in the AFR. This response allows the ECU to determine
the exact AFR values. This increase in precision will maintain much closer λ values over a much broader range of mixtures, all the way
from 0.7 lambda to straight air as desired [19]. Thus, fuel corrections to reach required AFR values will be much more accurate, leading
to overall better fuel control.

Fig. 3. Schematic diagram of the ECU’s configuration.

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Fig. 4. Engine operating and tuning flowchart.

Table 1
Gas analyzer emission measurement indication error [20].
Error type HC CO CO2 O2 NOx

(%) (%) (%) (%) (%)

Absolute �5 �0.06 �0.5 �0.1 �25

Relative �10 �5 �5 �5 �4

On the other hand, the main problem in the narrow band lambda oxygen sensor is that it only measures λ about the stoichiometric
region without sensing how lean or rich the fuel mixture is. This limits the precision of fuel offset at any given moment to reach
stoichiometry, due to constant value compensation, which leads to more fuel consumption. Yet, the engine power decreased by
4.1–9.3% in comparison with the narrow-band lambda oxygen sensor, because of less fuel in the mixture. Overall, the reduction in fuel
consumption outweighs the decrease in power as shown in Fig. 5.

3.2. Gas emissions

A significant improvement in gas emissions is observed, as shown in Figs. (6)–(8) at full throttle, where HC emission decreased by
19.4% and CO emission gas by 86.5% when operating the engine using the wide-band lambda oxygen sensor. Operating the engine
using the wide band lambda sensor decreased CO2 by 20.9%, NOx emission gas by 27.3% at full throttle. At 25%–75% throttle openings
NOx gas concentration showed an increase. This increase may be reduced by attaching EGR system from the exhaust line to the intake
manifold [21].

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Fig. 5. The power and fuel consumption curves using the narrow-band and wide-band lambda oxygen sensors.

Fig. 6. The HC gas concentration using the narrow-band and the wide-band lambda oxygen sensors.

Fig. 7. The CO gas concentration using the narrow-band and the wide-band lambda oxygen sensors.

3.3. Comparison between narrow-band and wide-band lambda oxygen sensors

The narrow-band sensor seen on the left of Fig. (9), has two ZrO2 plates. The bottom electrode is exposed to air while the upper one
is exposed to the exhaust gases in the left of Fig. (9). The difference in oxygen concentration between both sides generates a voltage, the
magnitude of this voltage results in a measurement of lambda.
A new component, called the oxygen pump cell, is found on the wide-band lambda oxygen sensor as shown on the left upper side of

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Fig. 8. The NOx gas concentration using the narrow-band and the wide-band lambda oxygen sensors.

Fig. 9. Comparison between the structure of the narrow-band and the wide-band lambda oxygen sensors [22].

Fig. (9). At operation, the current (Ip) is applied across the pump cell to keep the controlled region at stoichiometry. This current varies
with lambda, the value of the current yields a measurement of lambda from a dedicated Interfacing device.
Fig. (10) shows the oxygen sensors that were used in this work. On the left side of Fig. (10), the narrow-band oxygen sensor is
viewed as if it was installed on the exhaust line. The exhaust gas enters to the oxygen sensor through some holes. After the exhaust gas
enter the sensor, it gets in contact with the platinum electrode to read oxygen concentration. On the right side of Fig. (10), the wide-
band oxygen sensor differs from the narrow-band oxygen sensor by the pump cell electrodes which exchange oxygen with the exhaust
gas when a certain current is applied. The current applied yields to λ measurement.
This difference in structure between those sensors gave the wide-band better control capabilities due to the precise sensing of
oxygen concentration. Table 2 shows a brief comparison between those sensors in terms of main components, feedback signal, ECU
requirement, and the sensing capability.

4. Conclusions

1 According to the results, the wide-band oxygen sensor provided reduction in bsfc by 8.8–11.6% when running the engine in the lean
region. That was achieved at the expense of power reduction by 4.1–9.3%.
2 HC and CO gases concentrations readings showed significant average reduction by 19.4% and 86.5% using the wideband oxygen
sensor. On the other hand, NOx gas concentration increased by an average of 35.5%.

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Fig. 10. Construction view of both the narrow-band and the wide-band oxygen sensors [23].

Table 2
Brief comparison between the narrow-band and the wide-band oxygen sensors.
Sensor Wide-band Narrow-band

Main components two platinum electrodes two platinum electrodes

ZrO2 ceramic plate two pump cell electrodes
ZrO2 ceramic plate
Feedback signal 0.1 V or 0.9 V 0 V–5 V
ECU requirement digital reading channel analogue reading channel
Sensing capability rich or lean at wide ranges from 11 AFR to 22 AFR

3 A solution to the NOx gas increasing problem can be implemented by using the selective catalyst reduction method. Also, more
leaning of the fuel mixture showed reduction in NOx gas concentration relative to the lower λ values.

Declaration of competing interest

There is no conflict of interest.

Acknowledgement

The authors would like to thank Mr. M. T. Taha for the help during this work.

Appendix C. Supplementary data

Supplementary data to this article can be found online at https://doi.org/10.1016/j.csite.2019.100552.

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Appendix A. Test results using the narrow-band lambda oxygen sensor

Table 1
Performance results with the narrow-band sensor, using the dynamometer.

Throttle position Engine speed Dyn. speed Dyn. power Dyn. torque Engine power Engine torque Fuel cons. bsfc

(%) (rpm) (rpm) (kW) (N.m) (kW) (N.m) (g/s) (g/kWh)

100 4630 309 48.9 1511.1 54.4 112.19 3.97 292.02
75 4490 299 51.1 1631.9 56.9 121.01 4.03 284.14
50 4127 275 42.5 1475.1 47.3 109.44 3.50 296.47
25 3928 262 32.0 1166.2 35.6 86.54 2.87 322.50

Table 2
Test results on the engine with the narrow-band sensor, using the ECU logging tool.

Throttle position TPS Engine Speed ECT MAF EGO IAT

(%) (mV) (rpm) (oC) (Hz) (mV) (oC)

100 4863 4630 90 493 259 47
75 3808 4490 90 468 234 47
50 2773 4127 87 406 197 46
25 1738 3928 85 356 168 46

Table 3
Gas emissions with the narrow-band sensor, using the gas analyzer.

Throttle position HC NOx CO CO2 O2 Lambda

(%) (ppm) (ppm) (%) (%) (%) (λ)

100 72 1353 0.52 13.06 0.32 0.99
75 93 1120 2.31 12.23 0.24 0.94
50 153 989 4.89 11.42 0.19 0.868
25 254 612 7.34 10.73 0.18 0.81

Appendix B. Test results using the wide-band lambda oxygen sensor

Table 4
Performance results with the wide-band sensor, using the dynamometer.

Throttle position Engine speed Dyn. speed Dyn. power Dyn. torque Engine power Engine torque Fuel cons. bsfc

(%) (rpm) (rpm) (kW) (N.m) (kW) (N.m) (g/s) (g/kWh)

100 4653 310 47.3 1456.9 52.6 107.94 3.43 261.31
75 4533 301 49 1554.4 54.5 114.80 3.53 259.59
50 4382 293 46.9 1528.4 52.2 113.75 3.3 253.30
25 3844 260 29 1065.0 32.3 80.24 2.3 285.51

Table 5
Test results on the engine with the wide-band sensor, using scan tool.

Throttle position TPS Engine Speed ECT MAF IAT

o
(%) (mV) (rpm) ( C) (Hz) (oC)
100 4863 4653 90 499 48
75 3808 4533 90 476 47
50 2773 4382 88 447 47
25 1738 3844 86 344 47

Table 6
Gas emissions with the wide-band sensor, using the gas analyzer.

Throttle position HC NOx CO CO2 O2 Lambda

(%) (ppm) (ppm) (%) (%) (%) (λ)

100 58 983 0.07 10.33 4.50 1.287
75 64 1257 0.30 10.97 3.80 1.231
50 101 1432 0.20 11.87 2.98 1.157
25 195 1298 1.79 14.07 0.98 0.987

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