Abstract: A method of recognizing knocking combustion in an internal combustion engine involves sensing an ionic current in the combustion chamber and providing a corresponding ionic current signal, detecting the signal during a pertinent time window and band-pass filtering the signal for a pertinent frequency range characteristic of knocking phenomena, integrating the signal to provide a present integral value, and then comparing the present integral value to a lower knocking threshold and a higher knocking threshold. If the present integral value exceeds the lower knocking threshold but does not exceed the higher knocking threshold, the combustion is identified as a knocking combustion. If the present integral value exceeds the higher knocking threshold, the value is essentially disregarded as being implausible, and the combustion is identified either as non-knocking, or as the same combustion condition, i.e. either knocking or non-knocking, that had been determined in the previous combustion cycle.