A Driver-Assistant System for Efficient DPF Regeneration

The current standards for controlling pollutant emissions require that diesel engine vehicles be equipped with increasingly complex and efficient exhaust gas aftertreatment systems. One of these systems is the so-called Diesel Particle Filter (DPF) for retaining combustion polluting particles. To prolong the life of this system, which is normally quite expensive, there are precautions that must be taken by the driver and the most important consists of not interrupting the regeneration cycles, during which the retained particles are turned into ashes so as not to clog the filter. This paper presents a system that uses a proprietary algorithm which adapts to the available information that the vehicles provide through On-Board Diagnostics (OBD) and when no specific information about the DPF is available, uses fuzzy logic to process other data to detect the need of a regeneration and advise the driver about the correct procedures to extend the useful life of the DPF. The system outputs to an integrated display if a regeneration is being performed, the DPF state of health and a prediction of when the next regeneration will happen. Amongst extensive tests, two were selected to be discussed where a regeneration was detected and cancelled and another test where a faulty DPF was used.