PE4 Series engine control unit

The PE4 Series from Performance Electronics is a family of compact engine control units, and the PE4-UV013 is the model made for unmanned vehicles. It manages fuel injection and ignition on small engines and is supplied as a fully programmable engine management system, with part number 91000413 for the UV013.

The unit is described by the maker as a compact engine management system developed for the unmanned vehicle industry, able to control every aspect of a small engine. Performance Electronics also offers PE4 integration projects with engine designs and airframes already in production or in development, so an engine maker or UAV integrator can obtain standard or custom designs with customer-specified connectors.

The PE4-UV013 provides two injector drivers and two internal ignition coil drivers, so it suits single-cylinder and two-cylinder engines with electronic fuel injection and spark ignition. The sensor side has dedicated inputs for throttle position (TPS), manifold absolute pressure (MAP), intake air temperature (IAT), crank trigger and cam sync, plus two additional generic digital and analog inputs and a tachometer output. The UV013 adds a coolant temperature input, three more analog inputs, one thermocouple input covering 0 to 1000 degrees C, a stepper motor driver and four digital outputs. The trigger and sync inputs are what allow the unit to time injection and ignition to engine position, and the thermocouple input lets the controller read exhaust gas or cylinder head temperature.

For integration, the unit communicates over CAN bus. Tuning and monitoring are done with PC-based software: the peMonitor and peViewer programs are supplied with the UV013. The unmanned vehicle line is described with a 12 V or 28 V supply, data logging of up to 40 hours and password protection, which keeps calibrations from being read or changed by unauthorized users. The family-level information also lists thermocouple inputs, analog sensor inputs of 0 to 5 V, switched inputs and configurable on/off or PWM outputs, and the exact counts for each variant differ between the UV models.

Typical applications are engine control for small unmanned aircraft and other unmanned vehicles with piston engines. The maker states flight-qualified solutions for unmanned systems and offers engine and aircraft optimization support.