Koninklijke Philips Corporation N.v.

U.S. Philips Corporation

Stefan Pusch

Stefan Butzmann

Michael Hinz

Thomas Stork

Marcus Weser

Hans-Ulrich Lochmann

Gunnar Schulz

Guenter Kowalski

What is described is a configuration for determining the position of a body along a movement direction, wherein the body is in the form of a magnetized encoder with two magnetic tracks extending, on one surface of the body, along the movement direction, at least essentially in parallel with one another, wherein, at specified intervals along the movement direction, a first of the magnetic tracks exhibits magnetized sections in which the magnetic north poles are aligned so as to be at least largely coincident in a magnetization direction that is essentially at right-angles to the surface of the body, and wherein, at intervals specified to coincide with the above-mentioned intervals along the movement coordinate, the second of the magnetic tracks exhibits magnetized sections in which the magnetic south poles are aligned so as to be at least largely coincident in the said magnetization direction, and wherein, in each case, a magnetized section of one of the magnetic tracks is located at least largely centrally in relation to a gap between two magnetized sections of the other magnetic track, with a magnetoresistive sensor, in the form of an angle sensor, which is arranged above the magnetic tracks, for determining the directions of magnetic fields brought about by the magnetized sections of the magnetic tracks in an area extending along the movement coordinate, essentially in parallel with the surface of the body. By virtue of the invention, a simple configuration for the precise determination of the position of a body along a movement direction is created, wherein this configuration does not necessarily have to be affixed centrally upstream of the head of the body.

Angular displacement encoder with two magnetic tracks

An arrangement for detecting the angle of rotation of a rotatable element. The arrangement includes a plurality of magnetic field-sensitive sensor elements which are substantially planar and are substantially arranged in one plane, which sensor elements are connected to at least two bridge circuits each supplying a signal assigned to a function of the angle of rotation. A substantially planar coil arranged with its planar extension along the planar arrangement of the sensor elements supplies a magnetic auxiliary field to the sensor arrangement. To allow an unambiguous measurement through a large angular range, preferably up to 360&deg;, with a compact, simple and low-cost arrangement, the sensor elements of each bridge circuit are arranged in a star-shaped configuration, the sensor elements of the different bridge circuits are interleaved in a star-shaped concentric manner, and the substantially planar coil includes a substantially spirally concentric, planar, circular winding along its planar extension.

Arrangement for detecting the angle of rotation of a rotatable element

A sensor arrangement comprising two sensors (,) and processing unit (,) for deriving a measurement signal (M,, M,) from two sensor signals (S,, S,) which are each supplied by one sensor (,). Such a sensor arrangement may comprise for example two angular-position sensors which measure the angular position of a measurement object with respect to the sensor arrangement. According to the invention, in order to enable detection of errors occurring in such a sensor arrangement, particularly at the input of the processing unit (,) during the conversion of the sensor signals in the A/D converter units (,), switching means (,) have been provided for switching to two switching states in such manner that in each switching state a sensor signal (S,, S,) is applied to each of the A/D converter units (,) and that the allocation of the sensor signals (S,, S,) to the A/D converter units (,) is different in the two switching states, and the processing unit (,) is constructed to derive an error signal (F) from two measurement signals (M,, M,) determined during each time one switching state.

Sensor arrangement with measurement error detection

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Hamburg, Germany

Stefan Pusch