NON CONTACT WHEEL ALIGNMENT SENSOR AND METHOD

摘要

A sensor and method of determining the orientation of an object, such as the alignment characteristics of a tire and wheel assembly (58) mounted on a vehicle (60), includes projecting a plurality of light planes (62) from a first light projector (70) onto a tire and wheel assembly (58) to form a plurality of generally parallel illumination lines (64) on a tire (66) of the tire and wheel assembly (58), receiving a reflected image of at least some of the illumination lines (64) with a photo electric device (76) reflected from the tire (66) at an angle relative to a projecting angle of the first light projector (70), and determining a plane (57) defined by spatial coordinates from a selected point (55) located on each illumination line (64) imaged by the photo electric device (76), with the plane (57) representing the orientation of the tire and wheel assembly (58).