odometer

odometer, device that registers the distance traveled by a vehicle. Modern digital odometers use a computer chip to track mileage. They make use of a magnetic or optical sensor that tracks pulses of a wheel that connects to a vehicle’s tires. This data is stored in the engine control module (ECM). Odometers use these stored values to determine the total distance traveled by a vehicle.

Analog or mechanical odometers consist of a train of gears (with a gear ratio of 1,000:1) that causes a drum, classified in tenths of a mile or kilometre, to make one turn per mile or kilometre. A series of usually six such drums is arranged in such a way that one of the numerals on each drum is visible in a rectangular window. The drums are coupled so that 10 revolutions of the first cause one revolution of the second, and so forth, with the numbers appearing in the window representing the vehicle’s accumulated mileage.

The Roman architect and engineer Vitruvius is credited with inventing the initial version of an odometer in 15 bce. The concept consisted of a chariot wheel that turned 400 times to show one Roman mile. This wheel was mounted in a frame with a 400-tooth cogwheel. For every 400 rotations of the chariot wheel, the cogwheel would drop one pebble. In 1642 the French mathematician Blaise Pascal used the same principle to create an apparatus that used gears and wheels. For every 10 rotations of a gear, a second gear advanced one place. The modern odometer was invented about 1847 by pioneers William Clayton and Orson Pratt, members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. They attached their apparatus to a wagon wheel while they traversed the plains from Nebraska to the Great Salt Lake valley.