Patent ID: 8725310

Claim:
An optical sensor device for determining vehicle dynamic conditions, comprising a first laser device with at least one laser diode mounted on a vehicle at a first position so that the laser light impinges onto the road surface under a first oblique angle, and a second laser device with at least one laser diode mounted on a vehicle at a second position so that the laser light impinges onto the road surface under a second oblique angle, wherein said first and said second position are transversely spaced along the road surface, at least one detector for detecting self-mixing oscillations of the laser intensity of said laser diodes, and a data processing device for calculating forward, transverse or vertical velocities from the self-mixing-laser intensity oscillations of each of said laser diodes, and for determining at least one of the parameters selected from the group consisting of a vehicle body side slip angle, a tire slip angle, a yaw rate of said vehicle, a pitch or a roll rate of said vehicle, a turn radius, and an oversteer or understeer condition wherein one of said laser devices is mounted on a front wheel suspension so that the laser beam orientation is coupled to the front wheel travel direction.