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Probably title says it all, but I am on my design work for car suspension and cannot find a good displacement sensor for each of the wheels of the car. I tried to look up for accelerometers, which can tell tilting of the overall car from 4 directions, but it is hard to get the actual displacement mathematically.

Also looked for Electro-Optical proximity Detectors, but cannot find any data-sheets with proper explanations or any products in practice.

All I need is displacement detector/sensor, which could withstand car road vibrations (robust), would have high accuracy and sensitivity and would supply me with the sensitivity output information such as Volts/centimetre or similar. From this info I should be able to do my mathematics!

Thanks everyone for your time. All suggestions are welcome ad I will be happy to look for answers where you will point me. Tried Google countless times :(

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    What do you mean by "displacement" ... you trying to find a distance with it? Not sure I understand. Jan 14, 2016 at 2:13
  • So you want a sensor to measure the distance the suspension is being compressed in real time?
    – JPhi1618
    Jan 14, 2016 at 14:31
  • Tell us what you want to know rather than how you are trying to solve it. :)
    – race fever
    Jan 14, 2016 at 14:41
  • JPHI1618, you're are correct. I want to measure how much my suspension is displaced, so I could supply with extra force
    – Aurimas
    Jan 15, 2016 at 4:12
  • I want to supply or remove extra force dependent on cars oscillations when it hits a road disturbance. To do that I need a sensor to measure a suspension displacement (compression) or distance change from ground to the car body set point. I know both techniques use different sensors, but I think both could be used in same manner. Sorry for missing that in post before.
    – Aurimas
    Jan 15, 2016 at 4:23

1 Answer 1

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What you're describing is called a ride height sensor. Delphi is one manufacturer that makes sensors for a wide variety of production vehicles from Corvettes to Cadillacs.

Delphi rotary sensor

For motorsports applications, there are also optical sensors. One popular one (at least in pro racing) is KA Sensors RHL3. It bounces a laser beam off the ground and determines height. As I recall the Porsche factory cars that won at Le Mans in 2015 used them.

KA Sensors RHL3 laser sensor

Depending on your exact needs, using the term "ride height sensor" should get you plenty of hits in the search engine of your choice.

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