EngineWatch - 6D measurement of engine movements

• Replaces traditional devices such as mechanical travel sensors.
• Position and orientation of the measured points depicted with absolute values in the vehicle coordinate system. 
• Capable of monitoring movements of other relevant parts in the engine bay, for example movements of the battery box.
• Non-contact measurement method with no mechanical connection between sensor and engine block.
• Delivers reliable measuring results, also under extreme dynamic conditions.
• Measuring frequency up to 490Hz
• Measurement data can be recorded for an unlimited period of time.

Functional Principle

  EngineWatch is built around the high speed camera TraceCam F. The camera consists of a high resolution CMOS sensor, an integrated high performance flash, and an image analysis processor. TraceCam F features extremely short shutter speeds of just a few micro-seconds that are necessary for long-duration tests. It also ensures the system is robust and stable over time.

  Mounted on a fixture, the TraceCam F camera directly focuses the engine block. The measuring principle is based on the detection of relative movements of two solid bodies. Therefore reference targets are placed on the engine block and on the car body in a way that the camera will focus all targets at the same time. Setup and calibration of the system take less than 30 minutes. The position of the camera to the engine block does not need to be stable as EngineWatch recalculates its position continuously using the reference targets. Hence, camera movements cannot influence the measuring results.

  The measuring images are analyzed in the sensor. Thus only the digital data are transferred to the notebook computer in real time, not the entire images. EngineWatch calculates the positions of the measuring points in X, Y, Z, and the rotation angle (alpha, beta, gamma) as absolute values in the vehicle coordinate system. For the presentation of the results, a path-time diagram is created showing the X, Y, Z movements in the vehicle coordinate system. In order to visualize the measured movements in a CAD system, the measuring results can be exported to post-processing software via an interface.