Vehicle Fuel Tank Modeling Systems And Methods
AssigneeFord Global Technologies, LLC
InventorsHyongju Park, Ben Bulat, Richard Gordon, Arnold Babila
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
Vehicle fuel tank modeling systems and methods are provided herein. An example method includes introducing known volumes of fuel into the fuel tank, determining correlations of fuel level percentage values relative to the known volumes of fuel placed into the fuel tank, offsetting the correlations to compensate for unusable fuel volume of the fuel tank, selecting a non-linear fuel tank model that fits the offset correlations, and applying the non-linear fuel tank model to a target vehicle having a fuel tank with a fuel tank part number
Claims20
A method, comprising:
- introducing known volumes of fuel into a fuel tank of a first vehicle, wherein the fuel tank of the first vehicle comprises a fuel tank part number;
- determining correlations of fuel level percentage values relative to the known volumes of fuel placed into the fuel tank of the first vehicle;
- offsetting the correlations to compensate for unusable fuel volume of the fuel tank of the first vehicle;
- selecting a non-linear fuel tank model that fits the offset correlations;
- and
- applying the non-linear fuel tank model to a fuel tank comprising the fuel tank part number of a target vehicle.
A method, comprising:
- emptying a fuel tank of a vehicle;
- determining a fuel level percentage value for the fuel tank when the fuel tank is empty to determine an offset;
- incrementally filling the fuel tank with known volumes of fuel until the fuel tank is full;
- determining correlations between fuel level percentage values and the known volumes of fuel;
- applying the offset to the correlations;
- and
- selecting a non-linear model for the correlations.
A system, comprising:
- a processor;
- and
- a memory for storing instructions, the processor executing the instructions to:
- determining an estimate of unusable fuel volume left in a fuel tank of a first vehicle when the fuel tank is empty;
- incrementally filling the fuel tank with known volumes of fuel;
- determining correlations between fuel level percentage values and the known volumes of fuel;
- applying an offset to the fuel level percentage values to compensate for the estimate of the unusable fuel volume;
- determining a best-performing non-linear model candidate from a plurality of non-linear model candidates that matches the correlations between the fuel level percentage values and the known volumes of fuel;
- and
- determining a fuel level volume for a second vehicle having a similar or same fuel tank using the best-performing non-linear model candidate.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.