Vehicle management computer

Abstract

A method of and apparatus for starting and accelerating a vehicle through a range of vehicle speeds during which the vehicle internal combustion engine is operated in a plurality of different operating modes is disclosed. Different operating modes are available during normal operation. Under high demand conditions, the engine may be run as a conventional inefficient but effective throttled engine or converted to operation in a fourth mode as a two-stroke cycle engine. The vehicle management system includes a first read only memory for storing a fixed table of engine operating parameters corresponding to various engine conditions, and a random access second storage means for storing a table of engine operating parameters corresponding to various engine conditions with the second table being initially the same as the first table. The system responds to sensed engine conditions to modify the parameters in the second table and controls the vehicle in accordance with the parameters stored in the second table. Both short term modification to accommodate dynamic changes in the sensed engine conditions and long term modification to compensate for relatively slow changes in the engine and the management system are made to the information in the random access memory. The modifications may be on an overall engine basis or an individual cylinder basis.

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.