Patent · US Expired

Method and apparatus for determining the alignment of motor vehicle wheels

US6148528A · kind A · utility

82Cited by
8References
7Claims
0Family size

Assignee

Inventor

Key dates

Filing dateMay 10, 1999
Grant dateNov 21, 2000
Priority date
Expiry dateMay 10, 2019

Classification

  • Technology area (CPC G)Physics
  • CPC primaryG01B2210/30
  • WIPO fieldMeasurement
  • WIPO sectorInstruments

Abstract

An apparatus for determining the position and/or alignment of objects such as motor vehicle wheels, and including targets for attachment to the objects, a pair of optical sensing means such as television cameras for viewing the targets, an electronic processing means connected to the optical sensing means for processing data relating to images of the targets to determine position and/or alignment information, and a display means for displaying the position and/or alignment information. The optical sensing means view a target located on each object and form an image of each target. Electronic signals corresponding to each of the images are transferred to the electronic processing means which correlates the image signals of each of the targets with the true shape of each target. In so doing, the processing means relates the geometric characteristics and positional interrelationships of certain known elements of the target with the geometric characteristics and positional interrelationships of corresponding elements in the viewed images and calculates the position and/or alignment of the objects to which the targets are attached.

Source: USPTO / EPO open patent data. Objective bibliographic and citation counts.