International Journal of Technical Research and Applications e-ISSN:

2320-8163, www.ijtra.com Volume 4, Issue 5 (Sept - Oct, 2016), PP. 4-6

DESIGN OF WHEEL ALIGNMENT MEASURING

Abstract— Wheel alignment technology advances as to achieve vehicle travelling stability, travelling safety and
continuously with the introduction of new makes and other performance.
models of vehicles, engines, transmissions/ transaxles,
steering and electronic suspensions. Two wheel alignment III. LITERATURE REVIEW
is quickly becoming obsolete and four wheel alignment is Jigar Senjalia (1) had developed a new measurement
rapidly being incorporated on many of the new models. technique for the contact-less type
This work concentrates on the parameters like caster detection of measurement of wheel alignment, by means
angle, camber angle, toe in and toe out angles. In this work of a vision system which consists on a digital camera and a
simulation is carried out by using Infrared (IR) laser line pattern device. This system can identify very small
transmission through transceiver pair. The output voltage misalignment within second free mode which is less than 10-
is observed with change in angular displacement of IR 15 degrees of angle. The main advantage of this technique is
transmitter. This voltage is converted into software to be an alternative method for measuring the angular position
interfacing language using arduino board. The visual of wheel in regard to existing techniques using known pattern
basic.net software is used for programing and objects attached with wheel rim for this application. A new
mathematical calculations of output voltage into measured method is developed and presented for dynamic alignment of
angle in degrees. It is then verified by the results obtained the wheel hub and wheel by Vinayak A Prabhua (2). He also
from actual wheel alignments model used in showrooms. explained that, a light-controlled factory by optical
The proposed method shows high sensitivity towards measurement using infrared light and depth imaging is used to
minute changes in angles. Also the system can be made aid automation. The proposed method has the potential to
available at very low cost, and results can find similarities enable the automated wheel loading operation and the
with the actual system. automation of most assemblies in motion thereby having a
Index terms- match sticks, Coir, manufacture of significant impact on improving the efficiencies and
matchsticks. productivities of global automotive manufacturing companies.
Sonali Chatur (7) explained, computer based wireless wheel
I. INTRODUCTION alignment using accelerometer is explained, with the
Over the past 3 decades, we know that the automation has advantages of simple electronic circuit, low cost, high
played a key role in enhancing product quality and the resolution, high operational reliability and high measuring
productivity of the automotive manufacturing industry. The precision. In the calculations some correction factors are also
development of automobile technology impacts directly on introduced to obtain the actual angles. The angles are obtained
automobile travelling speed and also increased but the with respect to gravity, it is observed during the practical
automobile travelling safety is also proportionally decreased. implementations of the alignment system. To transmit the data
For safety purpose if we consider wheel alignment, it is again between measuring unit and computer wireless
important topic to discuss. Now a days passenger vehicle communication
usually has wheel alignments both for front wheel and rear method is adopted which helps in easier system operation.
wheel. The most influencing parameters in almost all The system practical inspection shows that its performance
automobile wheel are Toe, camber, steering axel inclination meets the design requirements. LI Wenhao (6) deeply studied
(SAI) and caster. the method of measuring the four-wheel alignment parameters
and optimizes the existing model to make it more congruent
II. EFFECTS OF WHEEL ALIGNMENTS with realistic measurement environment .Also, a new method
These wheel alignments will change gradually during to obtain the wheel axle direction vector is proposed. The
usage. Many problems could be caused because of uneven proposed method has the advantages of high measurement
alignment of wheel such as front wheel swinging during speed, simple operation, no need to repeat calibration and
travelling, rapid tire wear, decreasing of the directional worth developing and using. By using depth information a
stability after steering, steering wheel vibration, etc. Tire wear new technique of Machine vision can be used to measure the
is a part of economic calculations and also has an impact on parameters of an object. This project thus successfully uses the
energy consumption and the environment. Wheel alignments concepts of stereo vision in the field of wheel alignment, this
examination and adjustment should be carried out regularly so concluded by Akshay Padegaonkar (5). Jie Liang (4) proposed

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 International Journal of Technical Research and Applications e-ISSN: 2320-8163,
www.ijtra.com Volume 4, Issue 4 (Sept - Oct, 2016), PP. 4-6
a wireless optical wheel alignment measuring system based on VI. BLOCK DIAGRAM ADOPTED
PSD is presented, which has the advantages of simple electric An innovative technique is developed in this project. Simple
circuit, low cost, high operation reliability, high resolution and block diagram explaining the process of measuring system is
high measuring precision, etc. Measures are taken to eliminate as shown in fig.
the influence of the background light also the dark current to 2 this technique is used to convert infrared radiations into
system measuring precision. Wireless infrared communication digital signals.
method is used to carry out the command and measurement
data transmission between the master computer and the slave
computer, which make the system operation much easier.
Meng Qingguo (3) explained the response surface models
between the optimization objectives and alignment
parameters are established by the orthogonal test method.
That is benefit to the alignment parameters of front wheel
optimization design. Fig. 2 Block diagram of measuring system
IV. EXPERIMENTAL APPROACH FLOW CHART FOR PROJECT WORK VII. EXPERIMENTAL SET UP
In the below fig. 3 proposed wheel alignment system is
shown. It consists of IR – Receiver Transmitter pair.
Transmitters Attached on robo- wheel which is free to move
in upward, downward, horizontal and vertical direction.
Transmitter will emit infrared rays which are received by
Receiver, placed on another side in front of wheel. Outputs of
IR rays are given to the aurdino Board for signal processing.
At end, using USB interface, wheel alignment system get
connected with display unit via VB.net.

Fig. 3 Block diagram of wheel alignment system

Fig. 1 Flow chart for project work and receiver.

V. PROBLEM DESCRIPTION
A robo wheel of 80mm diameter was considered in this
research. Infrared transmissions were emitted by transmitters
mounted on wheel and received by receiver placed on the
opposite side of wheel, when supply was connected. This was
done to observe the IR transmissions when toe, caster and
camber angles are changed with

values of angles.

Fig. 4 IC 555 circuit for wheel alignment system

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 International Journal of Technical Research and Applications e-ISSN: 2320-8163,
www.ijtra.com Volume 4, Issue 4 (Sept - Oct, 2016), PP. 4-6
VIII. SOFTWARE DEVELOPMENT The presented wheel alignment system used to perform
Program is designed for measuring caster, camber and toe the real time system. This system also present how the
angles. Program is designed using C++ coding. In this, output proposed system is better than existing system. In this system
from IR receiver is used to convert signals into caster, the IR transmissions are used for wheel alignment, it has
camber, toe angles. advantages cost effective, superior than existing system, less
Program is designed for obtaining view of angles, so that time consuming. This system can be implemented for almost
we can visualize caster, camber and toe angles. all types of four wheelers where the wheel alignment is
necessary, and also find all types of misalignment by using
only IR transmissions.
Aurdino board output is used for this technique, also
VB.net coding is used to visualize the angles on laptop. References
Angle measured in degrees. [1] Jigar Senjalia1, Parinda Pandya2, Harsh Kapadia3,
To display all available data monitoring page is viewed. “Measurement of wheel alignment, using Camera
Using monitoring page, we can make decision about wheel Calibration and Laser Triangulation”, 2013.
alignment. [2] Vinayak A Prabhua, b *, Ashutosh Tiwaria, Windo
Hutabarata, John Throwera, and Christopher
Photographs during experimentation are shown in fig. 5 Turnera, “Dynamic alignment control using depth
imagery for automated wheel assembly” , 8th
International Conference on Digital Enterprise
Technology - DET 2014.
[3] Meng Qingguo, Zhang Lei, Dong En’guo, “Research
on Front Wheel Alignment Parameters Based on
Response Surface Model”, 2010 International
Conference on System Science, Engineering Design
and Manufacturing Informatization.
[4] Jie Liang, “Design of an Automobile Wheel
Alignment Measuring System Based on Position
Sensitive Detector”, International Conference on
Automation and Logistics Qingdao, China September
Fig. 5 Experimental Set up 2008.
Results [5] 1 Akshay Padegaonkar, 2 Madhura Brahme, 3 Mohit
Wheel alignment angle measurement is one of the Bangale, 4 Alex Noel Joseph Raj, “Implementation of
advanced and costly system. As IR transceiver are very Machine Vision System for Finding Defects in Wheel
sensitive to changes in angle and can identify angles upto Alignment” , IJCAT International Journal of
Computing and Technology, Volume 1, Issue 7,
rotated about x and y axis, camber and toe are recorded by August 2014.
the IR Sensors and digitalized on the display using Microsoft
visual studio programming. The set up is calibrated for [6] LI Wenhao1, GAO Yan1, ZHANG Rong2, “Research
accurate readings. And software output (i.e. angles in degrees) on the Machine Vision System for Vehicle Four-
are validated using protractor fixed around the wheel. Every wheel Alignment Parameters”, Proceedings of the
time noticing same accuracy of readings. Positive toe and 30th Chinese Control Conference July 22-24, 2011,
negative toe is calculated with the alert message of tyre wear Yantai, China.
in percentage. Also an alarm is generated when normal [7] Sonali Chatur, “Computer based Wireless
settings are obtained. Automobile Wheel Alignment system using
Accelerometer” , IJES || Volume || 4 || Issue || 9 ||
Pages || PP -62-69 || 2015 ||
[8] Rocco Furferi1,*, Lapo Governi1, Yary Volpe1 and
Monica Carfagni1, “Design and Assessment of a
Machine Vision System for Automatic Vehicle Wheel
Alignment” , Department of Mechanics and
Industrial Technologies, University of Firenze, Italy,
Received 2 Jul 2012; Accepted 18 Jan 2013.

Fig. 6 Photograph showing result taken on the instrument

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