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At the moment, no equipment is available for fast measurements of particulate matter (PM) from production CI engines, especially during transients. Against this background, virtual sensors may be an option, provided their precision can be validated. This paper presents a new approach to estimate PM emission based only on in-cylinder pressure data. To this end, an in-cylinder pressure trace is measured with a high resolution (0.5 CAD) and every trace is divided into 8 segments according to critical cylinder events (e.g. opening of the valves or the beginning of injection). A piecewise principle component analysis (PCA) is used to compress the information. This information is then used for PM estimation via a second order polynomial model structure. The key element is the separate use of pressure trace information before and during the early stages of combustion. The model is parameterized by steady points and transient experiments which include parts of the FTP and the NEDC.

On-line measurement of engine NOx emissions is the object of a substantial effort, as it would strongly improve the control of CI engines. Many efforts have been directed towards hardware solutions, in particular to physical sensors, which have already reached a certain degree of maturity. In this paper, we are concerned with an alternative approach, a virtual sensor, which is essentially a software code able to estimate the correct value of an unmeasured variable, thus including in some sense an input/output model of the process. Most virtual sensors are either derived by fitting data to a generic structure (like an artificial neural network, ANN) or by physical principles. In both cases, the quality of the sensor tends to be poor outside the measured values.