Appeal No. 97-0755 Page 10
Application No. 08/400,066
Claim 14 is drawn to an apparatus for determining the
number of cylinders to operate in a variable displacement
engine. The apparatus comprises, inter alia, an engine speed
sensor and a processor coupled to said engine speed sensor for
determining whether the variable displacement engine should be
operated on a fractional number of cylinders. Claim 14
further recites that the processor (1) infers a desired
fractional manifold vacuum representative of as amount of
vacuum required to accommodate the desired torque and the
specific emissions calibration for the variable displacement
engine operating on a fractional number of cylinders, (2)
stores recommendations for the number of cylinders to operate
in the variable displacement engine based on the present
engine speed and the inferred desired fractional manifold
vacuum, and (3) generates a present operating mode
recommendation reflective of the present engine speed and the
inferred desired fractional manifold vacuum.
Lipinski discloses a system for selecting the number of
cylinders to be operated in a multi-cylinder variable
displacement internal combustion engine. As shown in Figure
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