Beissbarth is introducing, as the first workshop equipment company in the world to do so, a wheel alignment system that operates in a completely no-contact fashion with the Touchless system. The new system offers the quickest form of alignment with high precision.

The development of wheel alignment was always closely associated with the name Beissbarth. The Munich company is one step ahead again now with the no-contact wheel alignment system. The initial ideas for completely no-contact alignment came up at Beissbarth around 1996, as the CCD systems, which are very widespread today, were almost effortlessly selling themselves. The wheel adapter for attaching the sensing element primarily bothered the engineers. First off, carefully mounting it represented the biggest time factor in preparations for the alignment and, secondly, it simultaneously created one of the biggest sources of error for the determination of measurements.

Consistently developed
Newly-designed and larger rims necessitated the development of new adapters over and over again. In addition, the possibility of scratching a rim during the mounting was an argument against the use of the adapters. The decision was made at Beissbarth for these reasons to not develop an intermediate solution with reflectors that can be put on the adapters or reference marks, like other workshop equipment companies envisioned it. The vision was to completely bypass the wheel adapter. This goal has been achieved with Touchless.

People will have to initially get used to the look of the new sensing element, but it offers the same precision as the previous outstanding systems from Beissbarth.
Four sensing elements are required, as before, for the assessment with subsequent adjustment. Each sensing element has its fixed location at the front right-hand side, rear right-hand side, front left-hand side or rear left-hand side. The user can freely put them next to the specified wheel at a distance of around 70 cm.

Whether the sensing element is exactly or only approximately next to the wheel doesn't play a role in the process. It also doesn't matter if the four sensing elements are not exactly parallel to the car. A slightly tilted position is likewise of minor importance. It is only important that the sensing elements can reciprocally see one another under the car.

The measuring heads, namely, have an eight-track sensor system, just like the classical system already has, with which they form a measuring circuit under the car and thereby orient themselves to one another. In addition, each sensing element also has a pendulum measurement system, just like the classical systems, in order to be able to recognize a possible minimally tilted position. The two cameras mounted at a slight tilt towards one another on each sensing element are the actual highlight. Each camera is surrounded by almost 1,000 infrared light-emitting diodes that light up intensely during the measurement.

Evaluating stereoscopic pictures

This illumination can be seen in the left-hand side of the illustration in the form of a light-red glimmer in the front-page, digitally-shot photo of this article. Each of the cameras has a somewhat different viewing angle to the wheel and only sees an ellipse in each case. A spatial image results from the combination of the two images. Basically, this principle is similar to the two eyes of a person; their images, which are perceived two-dimensionally, are first combined into a spatial impression in the brain. The sensing elements are each equipped with their own computing capabilities, they evaluate the stereoscopic pictures and thus determined how the wheel is positioned in space. This information is transmitted to the central PC for evaluation. By the way, the shape, color, size or cleaning status of a wheel do not influence the measurement result. Even sunlight coming in to the workstation doesn't lead to interference with the measurement process.

To achieve a flawless measurement result, the customary prerequisites for wheel alignment have to exist. The alignment workstation is a part of this, above all, in addition to correctly-set air pressure in the tires. The workstation has to absolutely be level. Rotary tables for complete alignment have to be available, as do sliding plates for a car to stay in place without tension.

The use of a tire-lane platform or a pit is recommended for the execution of the adjustment work. Beissbarth offers lateral straps to attach the sensing elements for tire-lane platforms.
The system already displays the measurements when the vehicle is driven into the workstation. The user only has to select the appropriate data record from the Beissbarth target-database to get the target values. This can be accomplished with a few easy steps on the operational tablet PC, with a WLAN network in the case that is shown. The logo used for the Touchless, the so-called oracle, serves as a central control element for the Touchless software, which is likewise new and based on Windows XP. It quickly leads the user through all of the alignment steps, such as the steering routine, for example. By the way, the steering wheel is still turned manually in the process. The software provides an abundance of notes and adjustment aids. The user can prepare a report at the end of the alignment.

Market introduction in 2006

Beissbarth will carry out a broadly-based, international field test with Touchless this year. The system should then be available in the market starting in mid-2006. There will probably be a variation with only two sensing elements for acceptance verification and a workshop version with four sensing elements. Wireless and cable data transmission and other equipment details will the be available to choose from.

Bernd Reich