Motor vehicle air spring system having an ultrasonic measurement arrangement

US6637269B2 · kind B2 · utility

Assignee

• ContiTech Luftfedersysteme GmbH · DE

Inventors

• Siegfried Reck · Nienburg, DE
• Volker Plett · Langenhagen, DE

Key dates

• Filing date: Oct 19, 2001
• Grant date: Oct 28, 2003
• Expiry date: Oct 25, 2021

Classification

• Technology area (CPC G): Physics
• CPC primary: G01S15/88
• WIPO field: Transport
• WIPO sector: Mechanical engineering

Abstract

An air spring system for a motor vehicle includes essentially a flexible member (4) having first and second ends. At a first end, the flexible member is closed off by the cover plate (8) as a connecting part and, at its second end, by a roll-off piston (10) as a second connecting part. To carry out a contactless distance measurement in accordance with the pulse/echo method in the interior space (6) of the air spring (2), an ultrasonic transmitter/receiver (14) is mounted on one of the two connecting parts (8, 10) and a reflector (16) is provided on the other one of the two connecting parts (8, 10). A separate reference reflector (18) is not used in order to simplify the construction and to save mounting space for the components. Instead, the reflector is configured as a two-step reflector. The one step functions as a target reflector (16) and the other step (26) functions as a reference reflector. A bumper (28) is preferably configured as a two-step target reflector (16). The step, which is configured in the bumper (28) is realized as a blind bore (20).