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Designing a control system that can robustly detect faulted emission control devices under all environmental and driving conditions is a challenging task for OEMs. In order to gain confidence in the control strategy and the values of tunable parameters, the test vehicles need to be subjected to their limits during the development process. Complexity of modern powertrain systems along with the On-Board Diagnostic (OBD) monitors with multidimensional thresholds make it difficult to anticipate all the possible scenarios. Finding optimal solutions to these problems using traditional calibration processes can be time and resource intensive. A possible solution is to take a data driven calibration approach. In this method, a large amount of data is collected by collaboration of different groups working on the same powertrain. Later, the data is mined to find the optimum values of tunable parameters for the respective vehicle functions.

Use of the two-stroke principle is favored in many small, lightweight engine applications. However, in its simplest form the two-stroke exhibits high specific fuel consumption and hydrocarbon emissions, and poor low speed, light load running quality. The need to resolve these problems and produce an environmentally friendly two-stroke engine has led to a variety of research and development efforts. At Michigan Technological University a marine-based two-stroke engine cylinder was reconfigured, with the objective of mitigating the low speed, light load problem. The cylinder utilizes auxiliary low speed ports which, when activated, are designed to reduce the trapped cylinder volume, and provide a higher purity trapped charge prior to combustion. Test results are reported for both intake and direct injection fuel delivery systems, and show that the reconfigured cylinder has improved low speed running characteristics.