Bei Sensors & Systems Company, Inc.

Philip Vuong

Asad M Madni

Jim B Vuong

A digital incremental encoder for generating an output signal indicative of an angular position, a direction of rotation, and a speed of rotation of a shaft. A counter receives a PWM signal indicative of the angular position of the shaft and a clock signal from an angular position sensor, and generates a multi-bit output. A latch latches the multi-bit output, a first bit and a second bit of which are used to generate the output signals that include the first bit. The first bit and the second bit may be XOR'd together to generate an XOR output included in the output signals. A direction of rotation may be derived from a quadrature phase relationship between the first bit and the XOR output. The angular position sensor may be an NCAPS or MT-NCAPS. A linear position sensor may be used instead of an angular position sensor to generate the PWM signal.

Pulse width modulation based digital incremental encoder

A multi-turn pulse width modulation (PWM) generator for generating a PWM output corresponding to multiple 360 degree turns. A counter receives a reference signal, and counts a number of cycles of the reference signal to generate a binary output corresponding to the number of cycles counted. A frequency divider receives a sensor output signal, and divides the frequency of the sensor output signal by the number of turns in the multiple turns to generate a frequency divided signal. The sensor output signal has substantially the same frequency as the reference signal, but can be offset in phase from the reference signal. A demultiplexer receives the binary output, and generates a plurality of turn indicator signals, each corresponding to one of the multiple turns. A multiplexer receives the turn indicator signals and a mechanical turn indication signal, and selects one of the turn indicator signals that corresponds to the mechanical turn indication signal. At least one flip flop receives the selected one of the turn indicator signals and the frequency divided signal, and generates the PWM output using the selected one of the turn indicator signals and the frequency divided signal. The multi-turn PWM generator may be combined with a single-turn angular position sensor to form a multi-turn angular position sensor.

Programmable, multi-turn, pulse width modulation circuit for a non-contact angular position sensor

A digitally programmable pulse-width-modulation (PWM) converter changes a 0% to 100% duty cycle input signal to any desired start and stop duty cycle range; for example, 5% to 95%. This is achieved by the difference in start and stop duty cycles forming a ratio which determines a pair of clock frequencies for modifying the PWM signal to provide the new start and stop duty cycle parameters.

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Northridge, CA, United States of America

Philip Vuong