Measurement of displacement

and Speed
Industrial Automation, EE-403
Spring 2014
 Objectives
• Know different methods of displacement
measurement.
• construction and characteristics of LVDT.
• principles of operation of inductive and capacitive
types of proximity sensors.
• Distinguish between variable distance and variable
area type of capacitance displacement sensors.
• principle of operation of a optical type displacement
sensor.
• noncontact type speed sensing and their principles of
operation.
 What to Measure?
• For example, we might measure fluid flow in a
pipe with a flow-meter, or we could measure
the flow indirectly by seeing how long it takes
for the fluid to fill a known-sized container.
• The choice would be dictated by system
requirements, cost, and reliability.
 POSITION SENSORS
• Position sensors report the physical position
of an object with respect to a reference point.
The information can be linear, as in how many
inches a robot arm has extended, or an angle,
as in how many degrees a radar dish has
turned.
 Potentiometers
• A potentiometer (pot) can be used to convert rotary or
linear displacement to a voltage. Actually, the pot itself
gives resistance, but this resistance value can easily be
converted to a voltage.
• Pots used for position sensors are the same in principle
as a standard “volume-control,” but there is a
difference.
– A pot used to measure angular position has linear
taper, which means the resistance changes linearly
with shaft rotation.
– A pot used for a volume control may have audio
taper, which means the resistance changes in a
nonlinear fashion to match the human perception
of “getting louder.”
 Potentiometers

• Used for linear and angular displacement, cheap

• Contact problem resulting from wear & tear ‘
between moving and fixed parts
 Wire-Wound Potentiometers
• The output of a position sensor should be a continuous DC
voltage, but the slider action of pots can sometimes cause
voltage transients.
• This is particularly true for wire-wound pots because the slider
may momentarily break contact as it bumps from wire to wire.
• This problem can usually be resolved with a low-pass filter,
which is simply a capacitor connected to ground
 Angular Measurement with a
Potentiometer
• Figure shows a pot that detects the
angular position of a robot arm. In this
case, the pot body is held stationary,
and the pot shaft is connected directly
to the motor shaft. (Example s 6.1 to
6.5, Chap 6, Killian)

• The pot just described is the single-turn type, which actually has only
about 350° of useful range. A single-turn pot may have “stops” at each
end of its travel. Obviously, such a pot could only be used where the
rotation never exceeds 350°. A single- turn pot without stops has a small
“dead zone” when the wiper crosses the end of the resistor. Multi-turn
pots are available with a wiper that moves in a helix motion, allowing for
up to 25 or more revolutions of the shaft from stop to stop.
• A pot is supplied with 10 V and is set at 82°. The range of
this single-turn pot is 350°. Calculate the output voltage.
Linear Variable Differential Transformer - LVDT

• The LVDT works on principle of variation of

mutual inductance.
• Good linearity over wide range of displacement.
Available in range of 0.25mm – 25 mm
• Non-contact type, thus minimizing frictional
resistance
• Most popular for displacement measurements.
• Also can be used for time varying displacement
measurements - speed
 Linear Variable Differential Transformer - LVDT

• The LVDT is a variable-reluctance

device, where a primary center
coil establishes a magnetic flux
that is coupled through a mobile
armature to a symmetrically-
wound secondary coil on either
side of the primary.
• Two components comprise the
LVDT: the mobile armature and
the outer transformer windings.
The secondary coils are series-
opposed; wound in series but in
opposite directions.
Linear Variable Differential Transformer - LVDT
• When the moving armature is
centered between the two series-
opposed secondary coils, equal
magnetic flux couples into both
secondary coils; the voltage
induced in one half of the
secondary winding is 180 degrees
out-of-phase with the voltage
induced in the other half of the
secondary winding.
• When the armature is moved out
of that position, a voltage
proportional to the displacement
appears
 Inductive type Sensors
• These sensors can be used
for proximity detection
also.
• A typical scheme is shown
in Fig. 3. the inductance of
a coil changes as a
ferromagnetic object
moves close to the
magnetic former, thus
change the reluctance of
the magnetic path.
• The measuring circuit is
usually an a.c. bridge.
 AC Bridge Circuit
• Z₁ / Z₂ = Z₃ / Z₄
• Used for measuring
unknown impedance
which may be
capacitance or
inductance
• http://www.allaboutcircuits.com/vol_2/ch
pt_12/5.html
Rotary Variable Differential Transformer (RVDT)

• Its construction is
similar to that of LVDT,
except the core is
designed in such a way
that when it rotates the
mutual inductance
between the primary
and each of the
secondary coils changes
linearly with the
angular displacement
Measurement of Rotary motion: Resolver
• A resolver consists of a rotor
containing a primary coil and
two stator windings (with equal
number of turns) placed
perpendicular to each other.
• The rotor is directly attached to
the object whose rotation is
being measured.
• By measuring these two voltages
the angular position can be
uniquely determined.
• Phase sensitive detection is
needed if we want to measure
for angles in all the four
quadrants.
 Capacitance Sensors
• C = Ɛ . A/ d
• A capacitance sensor can be formed by
either varying
– the separation (d)
– the area (A)
– the permittivity (Ɛ)
• A displacement type sensor is
normally based on the first two
(variable distance and variable
area) principles, while the
variable permittivity principle is
used for measurement of humidity,
level
• The measuring circuits for
capacitance sensors are normally
capacitive bridge type
 Capacitance Proximity Detector
• Capacitive proximity detectors are
small in size, noncontact type and
can detect presence of metallic or
insulating objects in the range of
approximately 0-5cm.
• The measuring Head of proximity
detector consists of two
electrodes, one circular (B) and
the other an annular shaped one
(A); separated by a small di-
electrical spacing.
• Capacitance between the plates A
and B would change when the
target comes in the closed vicinity
of the sensor head.
 Angular Velocity Sensors

Question
An optical type speed sensor has a disc with 36 rectangular
holes placed at regular intervals on the periphery of the disc.
The frequency of the photo-detector output is 360 Hz. Find the
speed of the shaft in rpm on which the disc is mounted.
 Speed Sensor with Variable Reluctance
• another scheme for
speed measurement. It
is a variable reluctance
type speed sensor
• A wheel with projected
teethes made of a
ferromagnetic material
is mounted on the shaft
whose speed is to be
measured

• The static sensor consists of a permanent magnet and a search coil

mounted on the same assembly and fixed at a closed distance from
the wheel.
• As the wheel rotates there would be change in flux cut and a voltage
will be induced in the search coil.
 Loading Error
• The potentiometer circuit is actually a voltage divider, and to work
properly the same current must flow through the entire pot resistance.
• A loading error occurs when the pot wiper is connected to a circuit
with an input resistance that is not considerably higher than the pot’s
resistance.
– When this happens, current flows out through the wiper arm,
robbing current from the lower portion of the resistor and causing
the reading to be low.
• To resolve this problem, a high-impedance buffer circuit such as the
voltage follower can be inserted between the pot and the circuit it
must drive.
 Loading Error
• Loading error is the difference between the
unloaded and loaded output as given in Equation
 Homework

EXAMPLE 6.5
The robot arm illustrated in Figure 6.7 rotates 120° stop-to-stop and uses a pot
as the position sensor. The controller is an 8-bit digital system and needs to
know the actual position of the arm to within 0.5°.
Determine if the setup shown in Figure 6.7 will do the job?
Solution

The controller is an 8-bit digital system and needs to know the actual
position of the arm to within 0.5°.
• To have 0.5° resolution means that the entire 120° will be divided into 240
increments, each increment being 0.5°.
• An 8-bit number has 255 levels (from 00000000 to 11111111), so it has
more than enough to do the job. (That’s good!)
• The pot is supplied with 5 V. Therefore, the output of the pot would be 5V
for the maximum pot angle of 350° (if it could rotate that far).
• Notice that the reference voltage of the ADC is also set at 5 V For the pot
voltage (Vpot) of 5 V, the digital output would be 255 (11111111bin).
• A single-turn pot has a range of
350°, but the robot arm only
rotates 120°,
• the 2 : 1 gear ratio between the
pot and the arm. With this
arrangement, the pot rotates
240° when the arm rotates 120°.
• By doubling the operating range
of the pot, the linearity and
resolution errors (from the pot)
are reduced by half.
• Consider the case when the robot
arm is at 10° Because of the 2 : 1
gear ratio, the pot would be at
20°.
• the pot voltage at 20°, we use the
transfer function of the pot (5 V
/350°) is 0.29 V. This 0.29 V is
then converted into binary with
the ADC.
• To calculate the binary output,
first form the ADC transfer
function
• Now calculate the ADC binary
output using the 0.29 V (pot
voltage) as the input
• We now turn our attention to the system resolution, which
is the smallest measurable change.
• In a digital system, this usually corresponds to the value
assigned to the LSB (you can’t change half a bit!).
• We can find the resolution by calculating the pot angle
corresponding to a single binary state. This is done
• by multiplying the transfer functions of each of the system
elements together

• This result tells us that the LSB of the ADC is 0.686°,

which is too big! We need the LSB to be 0.5°. As it
stands, this design does not meet the specification
Can it be fixed?
• Yes, looking back, we can see that at 350° the pot sends 5 V
to the ADC, but this will never happen because the pot is
constrained to 240°.
• To get maximum resolution from the ADC, the pot should
send 5 V to the ADC when the pot is 240°. This will require
raising the pot supply voltage to 7.3 V [by ratio, 5 V ×
(350°/240°) = 7.3 V].
• The revised voltages are as shown in the dashed circle
• The resolution is recalculated to be

This result is within the 0.5° specification

for resolution.