Capacitive Angular-Position Sensor With Electrically Floating Conductive Rotor and Measurement Redundancy

摘要

This paper presents a capacitive angular-position sensor with a contactless electrically floating conductive rotor and an interface electronic circuit that is designed to maximize the performance/cost ratio. The sensor includes two separate and independent measurement sections that sense the same angle and provide redundancy in critical applications. The electronic interface is based on a relaxation oscillator that, for each of the two sections, measures an appropriate quantity that relates capacitance ratio to angular position and provides a dc output voltage that varies ratiometrically with respect to the supply voltage. The sensor was built in a version with +-11 deg measuring range for each section. Experimental tests showed a linearity better that 1percent of the span.