System for cranking internal combustion engine by engagement of pinion with ring gear

摘要

In a system, an engine restating module is capable of executing an engine restart task to crank an automatically stopped engine if an engine restart condition is met. The engine restart task includes energization of a mechanism to thereby shift a pinion to be engaged with a ring gear, and energization of a motor to rotate the pinion. A deenergizing module is capable of deenergizing the motor if an interrupting request that interrupts restart of the automatically stopped engine is generated during execution of the engine restart task. A maintaining module is capable of maintaining energization of the mechanism to engage the pinion with the ring gear even if the interrupting request that interrupts restart of the automatically stopped engine is generated during execution of the engine restart task.

主权项

1. A system for cranking an internal combustion engine with an output shaft to which a ring gear is coupled, the system comprising:
a starter comprising a mechanism that shifts a pinion to the ring gear to be engageable with the ring gear when energized, a motor that rotates the pinion when energized, and a controller configured to: execute an engine restart task to crank the internal combustion engine if an engine restart condition is met, the engine restart task including energization of the mechanism to thereby shift the pinion to be engaged with the ring gear, and energization of the motor to rotate the pinion; deenergize the motor if an interrupting request that interrupts restart of the internal combustion engine is generated during execution of the engine restart task; maintain energization of the mechanism to engage the pinion with the ring gear even if the interrupting request that interrupts restart of the internal combustion engine is generated during execution of the engine restart task; determine whether a rotational speed of one of the pinion and the ring gear becomes zero with engagement of the pinion with the ring gear after interruption of the restart of the internal combustion engine; and deenergize the mechanism upon determination that the rotational speed of one of the pinion and the ring gear is zero with engagement of the pinion with the ring gear after interruption of the restart of the internal combustion engine.