Sensors

A sensor is a device that detects and responds to some type of input from the physical environment. The
specific input could be light, heat, motion, moisture, pressure, or any one of a great number of other
environmental phenomena.

Velocity and Motion Sensors

To detect and monitor the velocity and motion the following sensors are used.

Velocity Measurement
Velocity sensors or tach generators are devices that give an output proportional to angular
velocity.
These sensors find wide application in motor speed control systems.
The following are the various velocity sensors.

1. Electro Magnetic Transducer

The most commonly used transducer for measurement of linear velocities is electromagnetic
transducer.

Moving Magnet Type

In moving magnet type the sensing element is a rod that is rigidly coupled to the device whose
velocity is being measured.
This rod is a permanent magnet. This permanent magnet is surrounded by a coil.
The motion of the magnet induces a voltage in the coil and the amplitude of the voltage is directly
proportional to the velocity.

Moving magnet type transducer

Tach generators

A sensor that converts speed of rotation directly into electrical signal is called a tach generator.
It is used to convert angular speed into a directly dependent voltage signal.

Toothed Rotor Variable Reluctance Tach generator

It is used to measure angular velocity.
This tach generator consists of a metallic toothed rotor mounted on the shaft whose speed is to be
measured.
A magnetic pick up is placed near the toothed rotor and this magnetic pick up consists of housing, and the
housing containing a small permanent magnet with a coil wound around it.
When the rotor rotates, the reluctance of the air gap between pickup and the toothed rotor changes andthe
rise in e.m.f. is induced in the pickup coil. Finally, the output is in the form of pulses and wave shapes.
The pulses induced depend upon the number of teeth in the rotor and the rotational speed. When the
speed is known, the rotational speed is calculated by measuring the frequency pulses.

Fig. 2.24. Toothed rotor tachometer generator

Suppose the rotor has ‘n’ teeth and the speed of rotation is ‘N’ r.p.s. and number of pulses per second
is ‘p’.

The number of pulses per revolution = ‘n’ = n

The advantage of toothed rotor variable reluctance tach generator is the information from this device
can be easily transmitted and easy to calibrate.

2. A. C. Generator Form of Tach generator

It consists of rotor, which rotates with the rotating shaft and a coil.
When the coil rotates in the magnetic field the e.m.f. is induced.
The magnet may be in the form of stationary permanent magnet or electromagnet.
The frequency of this alternating e.m.f. is used to measure the angular velocity.
The output voltage is rectified and it is measured with a permanent magnet moving coil (PMCC)
voltmeter.

A.C Tachometer generator

Motion Sensors
1. Stroboscope
Stroboscope is a simple portable manually operated device for periodic or rotary motions
measurement.
It is a variable frequency flashing light instrument and the flashing is set by the operator.
If a strong light is caused to flash on a moving object at the time each flash occurs. The stroboscope
occupies a given position, and the object will appear to be stationary.
The flashing light whose frequency can be varied and controlled, and this source is called strobotron.

2 Pyroelectric Sensors
It consists of a polarized pyroelectric crystal with thin metal film electrodes on opposite faces. (Pyro
electric materials, e.g., lithium tantalate are crystalline materials which generate charge in response to
heat flow. When such materials heated to about 610° C in an electric field, the electric dipoles within
the material line up and it becomes polarized as shown in Fig.).
Due to the crystal is polarized with charged surfaces, the ions are drawn from the surrounding air and
electrons from any measurement circuit is connected to the sensor to balance the surface charge as
shown in Fig.
For measurement of a human or heat source motion, the sensing element has to differentiate between
general background heat radiation and a moving heat source. For that a single pyroelectric sensor is not
capable to use and dual pyroelectric sensors are used as shown in Fig.
In this dual pyroelectric sensor, the sensing element has the one front electrode and two back
electrodes. When two sensors being connected means both sensors are receiving the same heat signal
andtheir outputs are cancelled.
Suppose a heat source moves from its position means the heat radiation moves from one of the
sensingelements to the other, then the current is alternates in one direction first and then reversed
to the other direction second.
A moving human gives an alternating current of 1O A. When the infrared radiation is incident on
the dual pyroelectric sensor material and changes its temperature, the polarization in the crystal
is reduced. A focusing device is needed to direct the infrared radiation onto the sensor.