Proceedings Article | 2 September 1999
KEYWORDS: Sensors, Computer programming, Chromium, Spatial resolution, Glasses, Nickel, Electronics, Chemical elements, Photomasks, Microlens
In building the movable elements of robots, peripheral devices and measuring apparata, increasing the resolution of the angular sensor systems, based on incremental rotary encoders, is essential, together with decreasing the complexity, dimensions and weight. Especially when the angular sensor is integrated in a measuring system, belonging to a programmed light airplane for surveillance, the key issue is to reduce both dimensions and weight. This can be done using a simplified design, which consists in the following solutions: replacement of the fragile Cr on glass substrate, 1.5 mm thick (normally used for the fabrication of incremental disks), with light Cr on polycarbonate substrate, with only 0.15 mm thick; the absence of collimating optics (based on microlenses, used in IR emitter-photocell receiver assembly), as a result of the good coupling efficiency (due to the possible approaching of these elements at minimum 0.45 mm); the shrinkage of the disk's diameters to only 14 mm; the use of surface mounting devices and the related surface mounting technology, enabling to reduce dimensions and weight. The maximum number of slits on a 14 mm diameter dividing disk, usually obtained in a Cr on polycarbonate version, being approx. 1000, no problem occurs in our case, for 360 slits. The requested angular resolution (only 0.5 degrees for the light airplane), using the whole classical '4x digital multiplication' is not necessary, but a lower one of only 2x, resulting in a simplified electronics. The proposed design permitted, that an original arrangement, for building a small size, lightweight, heavy-duty incremental transducer based angular sensor system, to be obtained, useful not only in avionics, but also in robotics, or other special applications. Besides, extending the number of fixed gratings (masks) allows, that many primary signals to be derived, and a further increase in resolution of even 6 angular minutes to be obtained from the initial 360 slits.
