Instant Fuel Consumption Test Method and

Experimental Analysis of EFI Vehicle on the Move

YAO Huan - xin

School of Mechanical Engineering,
Ningbo University of Technology
Ningbo, Zhejiang Province, China
hljmdjyhx@163.com

AbstractThe paper introduces the instant fuel consumption
detection system with AT89S8252 microcontroller at the core
which detects the instant fuel consumption utilizing the fuel
injector pulse width signal and speed transducer signal.
Combined with instant fuel consumption and fuel consumption
per hundred kilometer display in real time, the detection system
features quick response and high precision in measurement
based on experimental analysis.
Keywords-AT89S8252 microcontroller;instant fuel consump-
tion; fuel injector pulse; EFI
because carbon content in both seldom varies. However the
precision of this method is not as high as that of the direct
measurement and its measuring equipment is large, expensive,
complicated and not portable.
The instant fuel consumption detection system mainly
adopts the indirect measurement utilizing the linearity between
injecting time and quantity to calculate the fuel injecting
quantity and the vehicle speed signal to determine the fuel
consumption per hundred kilometers. Details are shown in the
following figure 1.

I. INTRODUCTION (HEADING 1)
dt L/h
As one of the major indicators of vehicle economic
performance, fuel consumption and its accurate, quick
measurement and display come as very important for the L /100km
N
driver. This paper introduces how to calculate the fuel injection
quantity and fuel consumption per hundredkilometersgiven
the injecting signal and speed signal with a view to enabling
the driver to keep fuel consumption conscious, gradually Figure1. Program block diagram.
improving driving habit and eventually reducing fuel
III. MEASURING SYSTEM DESIGN SCHEME
consumption. Each time a driver steps on the gas or drives
under different operating conditions, the change in instant fuel
A. Hardware Design
consumption will appear on the display screen, reminding the
driver of the instant fuel consumption change in real time. Thus With AT89S8252 microcontroller at the core for system
the driver could feel for himself the change in fuel control and other components such as fuel sensors, flow sensor,
consumption brought by the change in driving habit, avoid display module, power module, key board control and fuel
improper operation and maintain the optimum speed, which injecting pulse signal module, the overall system is illustrated
may cut fuel consumption by approximately 10%. This could as figure 2.
also play an important role in improving fuel efficiency so as to
alleviate the current energy crisis.

II. THE BASIC PRINCIPLES OF INSTANT FUEL

CONSUMPTION DETECTION SYSTEM
There are usually two ways to measure fuel consumption
namely the direct measurement and indirect measurement. The
former includes volumetric method, gravimetric method, flow
meter method and Current-meter method etcwhich require to
open the vehicle oil-way, connect up the flow meter and
measure the fuel consumption directly. To gain the same effect, Figure 2 . AT89S8252 microcontroller system.
the later, also called the carbon balance method only requires to
measure the carbon content in exhaust per unit time and to The measurement system adopts AMTEL AT89S8252-
compare it with that in the fuel without opening the oil-way 24AI microcontroller with a 8K downloadable Flash memory
which can quickly delete and write programs on the circuit

978-1-4244-8039-5/11/$26.00 2011 IEEE

board thus enabling online software debugging; The built-in
2K E2PROM improves the storage capacity; with a 256 bytes
RAM; 32 programmable I /O ports; a 4 ~ 6V operating voltage
range; three program memory encryption lock function; 9
interruption response function; a SPI interface; a Watchdog
Timer; a dual data pointer function; a drop from the power
interruption recovery, three 16-bit timer / counter, this
microcontroller can fully satisfies the needs of a fuel
consumption measurement system.
Speed signal collection: collected from the wheel speed
sensor signals.
Signal processing
Relation between injection signals and fuel consumption:
Y = (3600 k k0 T ) / (1000 S ) = (3.6 k k0 T ) / S
(3)
Y L/h Fuel injection quantity per unit time;

The microcontroller AT89S8252 is powered by car battery, T s Time period a single injector fuel injection time;
fuel injector signal obtained directly from the injector and the
speed signal from the speed sensor. After A/T signal k The number of injectors;
processing, the Injector signal together with the vehicle speed S s
signal are connected to the microcontroller which calculates the The measurement of time;
actual values of the fuel consumption and display the results Relationship between fuel consumption and speed:
through modules:
Qk = Y N / n
Qd = k0 dt ( k0 -Injector parameters) (1) (4)
Qk
L/100km Fuel consumption per hundred kilometers;
B. The Measurement Principle
n Time period the number of speed sensor pulses;
Relation of Fuel injection quantity and fuel injection
time N Hundred kilometers per pulse number speed sensor.
Relation of Fuel injection quantity and fuel injection to the
time Single individual injector fuel injection quantity is IV. EXPERIMENT DATA AND RESULT ANALYSIS
calculated as:
A. The fuel consumption collection testing and error analysis
Qd = fd t 2 gd ( pa pb ) (2) Based on Santana 3000 test bed, we take the fuel injection
pulse signal as the input signal to get the fuel consumption and
The flow Coefficient of the fuel injector compare it with the results from fuel consumption meter.
f m2 area of the injector nozzle
Testing data is shown in Table 1-2.
g m/s2 Acceleration of gravity TABLE I. THE ENGINE RPM TO 800 R / MIN FUEL CONSUMPTION AND
d kg/m3 fuel density ERROR

pa 2
N/m Fuel system pressure
The relative
Injection fuel Actual fuel
pb N/m2 number
engine sampling time consumption consumption
error of
intake pressure speed(r/min) time (s)
ms L/H L/H
accuracy
%

dt s Injector opening time.

For some specific types of injector, its flow coefficient 1 801 30 8333 1.120 1.13 0.88
and the nozzle area are constant values. Due to the fuel
pressure regulator, the fuel injection system is able to keep 2 804 30 8325 1.119 1.13 0.98
fuel pressure of the injector and the pressure difference of the
3 804 30 8320 1.118 1.12 0.16
p p
intake manifold constant a b
so that each time the
fuel injection quantity is only proportional to the time to open 4 800 30 8342 1.121 1.13 0.78
the valve. Therefore the amount of fuel needed each
5 795 30 8356 1.123 1.13 0.62
combustion can be determined by controlling the fuel injection
time, so 6 800 30 8354 1.123 1.13 0.64
Qd = k0 dt
7 796 30 8342 1.121 1.12 0.10
Signal collection
8 803 30 8323 1.119 1.12 0.12
Injection signal collection: signals can be collected from the
fuel injector connection line as well as from the electronic 9 804 30 8355 1.123 1.13 0.63
control unit ECU. The device gets the injecting signals through
the movement of the connection line of the fuel injector and the 10 801 30 8313 1.117 1.12 0.24
total fuel injection quantity can be calculated according to this
fuel injection signal.
TABLE II. ENGINE REVOLUTIONS TO 2000 R / MIN FUEL CONSUMPTION Putting Santana 3000 to test, we take fuel injection pulse
AND ERROR
signal as the input signal to calculate fuel consumption; take
the speed sensor signal as the speed signal to calculate the
driving speed. The testing data of fuel consumption and fuel
The consumption per hundred kilometers are shown in Table 3.
engine fuel Actual fuel relative
sampling Injection
number speed consumption consumption error of
r/min
time (s) timems
L/h L/h accuracy The testing results indicate that the system can provide a
% very good real-time display of fuel consumption (L / h) and
fuel consumption per one hundred km (L/100km), updated
1 1997 30 23256 3.126 3.11 0.83 every 3 seconds to (updating rate can be set higher). The test
2 2003 30 23384 3.143 3.12 0.73 also shows the fast display speed, reflecting the fuel
consumption under a variety of conditions in time which could
3 2001 30 23427 3.149 3.16 0.36
serve as a good reference to fuel efficiency and emission
4 1998 30 24016 3.228 3.22 0.24 reduction.
5 2004 30 23875 3.209 3.22 0.35
V. CONCLUSION
6 2005 30 23561 3.167 3.14 0.85
This paper presents a new method of measuring fuel
7 2000 30 24110 3.240 3.25 0.30 consumption for fuel efficiency of EFI vehicle and the
8 1999 30 23853 3.206 3.20 0.18 corresponding measurement device. Through testing and data
processing, the following conclusions are reached:
9 1998 30 23677 3.182 3.21 0.87
(1) The paper proposes to analyze the relation between fuel
10 1999 30 23771 3.195 3.22 0.78
injection quantity and control signals through directly
collecting the control signals of electric nozzle and then
calculate the fuel consumption of engine. This method is
The main reasons for the error may come from the following: simple with acceptable testing precision. As shown by the
testing analysis, the maximum relative error is less than 1.25%.
(1) Error caused by the fuel consumption meter on the test- (2) Compared with other fuel consumption meters, the
bed. measurement device used in the method is free from precision
(2) Great error incurred by the unstable level and voltage mechanism, which reduces the manufacturing cost significantly
when testing. on one hand and simplify the repair and maintenance work on
the other hand.
(3) Error as a result of unstable properties after a long time
use of the fuel injector in testing. (3) The system adopts the method of direct collection of
injection pulse, with no signal delay and excellent dynamic
(4) Error caused by the inconsistency in injecting time characteristics; which commands superiority in instant fuel
covered in each timing period during the measurement process. consumption measurement under different operating
conditions.
B. Measurement and statistics of fuel consumption per
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