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Industrial Electronics
(EL-301)
Teacher:
Dr. Syed Riaz un Nabi Jafri

(Lecture 11)

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 Lecture Contents

• Displacement Sensors
• Potentiometric Sensor
• Mechanical Encoders
• IR based Encoders
• Absolute and Incremental Encoders

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 Displacement Sensors
Displacement: movement from one position to another
for a specific distance or angle.
Displacement can be classified as
• Linear displacement
• Rotational displacement

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 Displacement Sensors
• Linear displacement of a body is the distance (meters,
inches) through which a point or line has been
displaced(moved) in a specified sense about a specified
position.

• Angular displacement of a body is the angle in radian

(degrees, revolutions) through which a point or line has
been rotated in a specified sense about a specified axis.

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 Displacement Sensors
There are various types of displacement measurement techniques available having
their own pros and cons. The most common types practiced in the industry are

 RESISTANCE
 ENCODERS
 LVDT/ RVDTS
 RESOLVERS
 SYNCHRO

 EDDY CURRENT DISTANCE SENSOR

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 Types of Displacement Sensors

1. Potentiometer(resistance)
• Potentiometers are resistive devices with a linear or rotary sliding contact whose
position is affected by the position (movement) of the measured object.

• The resistance of the resistive material (winding or a layer of resistive material

placed on insulated core) between the beginning of the winding and the wiper, is
proportional to the position of the wiper.

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 Potentiometer (resistive sensor)
• The principle of operation in potentiometric mode is shown in Figure

Potentiometric mode the output voltage U2 is given by the relation:

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 Potentiometer (resistive sensor)
• And it is proportional to the resistance R2 which in turn is proportional to the
position of the wiper x.

• Proportionality is valid only if the loading resistance RZ is much greater than R as it

can be seen from the equivalent circuit.

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 Potentiometer (resistive sensor)
• There are multi turn potentiometers are also available which are used for a fixed
rotational movements.

• All kind of potentiometric sensors are cheap and providing analog values but there
are life is limited.

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 Types of Displacement Sensors

2. Encoders
• A rotary encoder, also called a shaft encoder, is an electro-mechanical device used
to convert the angular position of a shaft or axle to an analog or digital code,
making it an angle transducer.
• These devices are used in industrial controls, robotics, in top-of-the-line
photographic lenses, in computer input devices (such as optomechanical mice and
trackballs), and in rotating radar platforms.

There are two main types:

 ABSOLUTE ROTARY ENCODER

 INCREMENTAL ROTARY ENCODER

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 Encoder Technologies

• Encoders may be implemented using a variety of technologies:

 Conductive tracks. A series of copper pads etched onto a PCB is used to encode
the information. Contact brushes sense the conductive areas. This form of encoder
is now rarely seen.

 Optical. This uses a light shining onto a photo diode through slits in a metal or
glass disc. Reflective versions also exist. This is one of the most common
technologies.

 Magnetic. Strips of magnetised material are placed on the rotating disc and are
sensed by aHall-effect sensor.

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 Absolute Rotary Encoder

The absolute digital type produces a unique digital code for each distinct angle of
the shaft.
They come in two basic types:
 MECHANICAL
 OPTICAL

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 Absolute Rotary Encoder

Mechanical Absolute Encoders

• A metal disc containing a set of concentric rings of openings is affixed to an
insulating disc, which is rigidly fixed to the shaft.
• A row of sliding contacts is fixed to a stationary object so that each contact wipes
against the metal disc at a different distance from the shaft.
• As the disc rotates with the shaft, some of the contacts touch metal, while others
fall in the gaps where the metal has been cut out.
• The metal sheet is connected to a source of electric current, and each contact is
connected to a separate electrical sensor.
• The metal pattern is designed so that each possible position of the axle creates a
unique binary code in which some of the contacts are connected to the current
source (i.e. switched on) and others are not (i.e. switched off).

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 Absolute Rotary Encoder
Standard Binary Encoding
Rotary encoder for angle-measuring devices marked in 3-bit binary.

The inner ring corresponds to Contact 1 in the table. Black sectors are "on". Zero
degrees is on the right-hand side, with angle increasing counterclockwise.
An example of a binary code, in an extremely simplified encoder with only three
contacts, is shown below.

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 Absolute Rotary Encoder

Standard Binary Encoding

Sector Contact 1 Contact 2 Contact 3 Angle
1 Off off off 0° to 45°
2 Off off on 45° to 90°
3 Off on off 90° to 135°
4 Off on on 135° to 180°
5 On off off 180° to 225°
6 On off on 225° to 270°
7 On on off 270° to 315°
8 On on on 315° to 360°

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 Absolute Rotary Encoder

Rotary encoder for angle-measuring devices marked in 3-bit binary. The inner
ring corresponds to Contact 1 in the table. Black sectors are "on". Zero degrees is
on the right-hand side, with angle increasing counterclockwise.

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 Absolute Rotary Encoder

• In general, where there are n contacts, the number of distinct positions of the
shaft is 2n. In this example, n is 3, so there are 2³ or 8 positions.
• In the above example, the contacts produce a standard binary count as the disc
rotates.
• The drawback is that if the disc stops between two adjacent sectors, or the
contacts are not perfectly aligned, it can be impossible to determine the angle of
the shaft.
• To illustrate this problem, consider what happens when the shaft angle changes
from 179.9° to 180.1° (from sector 4 to sector 5). At some instant, according to the
above table, the contact pattern will change from off-on-on to on-off-off.

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 Gray Encoding
• Rotary encoder for angle-measuring devices marked in 3-bit binary-reflected Gray
code (BRGC). The inner ring corresponds to Contact 1 in the table.

• Black sectors are "on". Zero degrees is on the right-hand side, with angle
increasing anticlockwise.

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 Gray Encoding

• To avoid the above problem, Gray encoding is used. This is a system of binary
counting in which adjacent codes differ in only one position.
• For the three-contact example given above, the Gray-coded version would be as
follows.

Gray Coding
Sector Contact 1 Contact 2 Contact 3 Angle
1 off off off 0° to 45°
2 off off on 45° to 90°
3 off on on 90° to 135°
4 off on off 135° to 180°
5 on on off 180° to 225°
6 on on on 225° to 270°
7 on off on 270° to 315°
8 on off off 315° to 360°

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 Gray Encoding

• In this example, the transition from sector 4 to sector 5, like all other transitions,
involves only one of the contacts changing its state from on to off or vice versa.
• This means that the sequence of incorrect codes shown in the previous illustration
cannot happen here.

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 Incremental Rotary Encoder
• An incremental rotary encoder, also known as a quadrature encoder or a relative
rotary encoder, has two outputs called quadrature outputs.
• They can be either mechanical or optical. In the optical type there are two gray
coded tracks, while the mechanical type has two contacts that are actuated by
cams on the rotating shaft.
• The fact that incremental encoders use only two sensors does not compromise
their accuracy. One can find in the market incremental encoders with up to 10,000
counts per revolution, or more.
• There can be an optional third output reference, which happens once every turn.
This is used when there is the need of an absolute reference, such as positioning
systems.

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 Incremental Rotary Encoder
• The incremental encoder, sometimes called a relative encoder, is simpler in design
than the absolute encoder.
• It consists of two tracks and two sensors whose outputs are called channels A and
B.
• As the shaft rotates, pulse trains occur on these channels at a frequency
proportional to the shaft speed, and the phase relationship between the signals
yields the direction of rotation.

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Incremental Rotary Encoder

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 Incremental Rotary Encoder
• By counting the number of pulses and knowing the resolution of the disk, the
angular motion can be measured.
• The A and B channels are used to determine the direction of rotation by assessing
which channels "leads" the other.
• The signals from the two channels are a 1/4 cycle out of phase with each other
and are known as quadrature signals.
• Often a third output channel, called INDEX, yields one pulse per revolution, which
is useful in counting full revolutions. It is also useful as a reference to define a
home base or zero position.

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 Incremental Rotary Encoder

Figure (above) illustrates two separate tracks for the A and B channels, but a
more common configuration uses a single track with the A and B sensors offset
a 1/4 cycle on the track to yield the same signal pattern. A single-track code disk
is simpler and cheaper to manufacture.
The quadrature signals can be decoded to yield the direction

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 Incremental Rotary Encoder

The quadrature direction sensing and resolution enhancement CW= clock wise,
CCW =(Counter-clockwise)

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 Incremental Rotary Encoder

• The optical type is used when higher RPMs are encountered or a higher degree of
precision is required.
• This same principle is used in old ball mice to track whether the mouse is moving
to the right/left or forward/backward.

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 Optical Tachometer

Rotary sensors with a single output are not encoders

and cannot sense direction, but can sense RPM. They
are thus called tachometer sensors.

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