Development of a rotating-shaft torque sensor for
automotive applications
J.D. Turner, BSc, PhD, CEng, MIEE
Indexing terms: Transducers, Control equipment and applications, Instrumentation and measuring science, Vehicles and transportation
Abstract: Measurements of the torque in a rotat-
ing shaft are often required for automotive power-
train and engine control systems. Conventional
shaft torque measurement techniques involve
strain gauges and slip rings. While this approach
is often used for prototypes and vehicles under
development, it is too expensive and not rugged
enough for production vehicles. The Ford Motor
Company has supported work at Southampton
University with the aim of producing a rugged
noncontact shaft torque sensor, at a cost which
will allow its use for automotive applications. The
system described in the paper uses a novel capac-
itive torque sensor, which is attached to the rotat-
ing shaft. The capacitive sensor forms part of a
rotating resonant circuit, which is excited across
an airgap by means of inductive coupling. Varia-
tions in torque cause changes in the resonance fre-
quency of the tuned circuit. The resonance
frequency is detected as a change in referred
impedance at the exciting coil. Considerable effort
has been put into the design of the capacitive
torque transducer. A number of practical prob-
lems have to be overcome, such as finding a suit-
able method of adhesion and optimising the
capacitor geometry. A satisfactory sensor has now
been produced, and work is now being concen-
trated on improving the passive telemetry system.
The torque sensor is currently the subject of a
patent application by the Ford Motor Company.
1 Introduction
Automotive engineers concerned with engine manage-
ment or gearbox control systems would find it very useful
to be able to continuously monitor the torque from a
vehicle's engine and/or gearbox. Strain gauge torque
sensors and slip rings are routinely used for this purpose
on prototype vehicles, but are far too expensive and not
reliable enough to be used in production vehicles. The
cost constraints placed on the automotive engineer with
regard to sensors are considerable. In a recent paper [1],
it is shown that manufacturers are likely to reject any
sensor costing more than about £2 as being too expen-
sive.
The problem addressed by this paper is, therefore, the
Paper 6159D (Cl 1, C12), first received 8th October 1987 and in revised
form 25th February 1988
The author is with the Department of Mechanical Engineering, Uni-
versity of Southampton, Highfield, Southampton SO9 5NH, United
Kingdom
334
development of a rugged and cheap method of measuring
the torque in a rotating shaft. Because durability is a
prime concern, it was decided that the method used
should be noncontacting.
A technique known as 'grid dip telemetry' has been
used with success in medical applications [2]. It has also
been applied to a number of engineering problems, such
as monitoring vehicle tyre pressures [3] and measuring
the temperature of the rotor in a railway traction motor
[4]. The operating principle of grid dip telemetry is
extremely simple. A passive circuit consisting of an induc-
tor and a capacitor is linked by inductive coupling to an
oscillator, as shown in Fig. 1. The resonance frequency of
the passive circuit is
1
fr = (1)
passive circuit grid dip oscillator
Fig. 1 Simplified grid dip circuit
If the frequency of the oscillator is swept through a range
which includes the resonance frequency fr, an increased
loading will occur when the oscillator frequency equals
fr. This loading may be detected as an increase in the
current being drawn from the oscillator, if a constant
voltage is maintained.
The term grid dip telemetry is a survival from the days
of thermionic valve circuits. Before the advent of tran-
sistors, an oscillator's output stage usually incorporated a
triode valve. As the loading on the oscillator increased,
the voltage on the grid of the triode dropped. Hence the
name grip dip.
2 Measurement of the resonance frequency
The sensitivity with which the resonance frequency can
be measured depends on three factors:
IEE PROCEEDINGS, Vol. 135, Pt. D, No. 5, SEPTEMBER 1988
 (i) the quality factor or Q of the resonant circuit
(ii) the coupling between the two inductors (expressed
in terms of the coupling coefficient)
(iii) the amount of noise in the signal.
Considering each of these in turn:
The Q-factor of a resonant circuit is principally con-
trolled by adjusting its resistance Rt (see Fig. 1). This is
most conveniently done by adjusting the number of turns
of wire in the inductor L l5 together with the gauge of the
wire. In practice, complications arise due to eddy current
effects in nearby metal and skin effects at high fre-
quencies, and some experimentation is usually necessary
to obtain a desired Q value.
The coupling coefficient K is a function of the dis-
tance between the two inductors and the permeability of
the medium separating them, which in this case is air. To
maximise the coupling a coaxial arrangement was used,
with the fixed coil wound onto a ring placed around the
rotating system and separated from it by an airgap of a
few millimetres. K values of around 0.3 were achieved by
the torque sensor.
The third factor affecting the system's performance is
the signal/noise ratio. This can be maximised by arrang-
ing for the resonance frequency to be well away from any
noise frequencies, and by using as large an excitation
signal as possible.
3 Application to a rotating shaft
As discussed in the introduction, the technique used for
torque measurement was to mount a passive resonant
circuit on the rotating shaft. It was then necessary to
arrange for the torque to vary either the inductance or
the capacitance, in order to vary the resonance frequency.
A fixed coil driven by an oscillator is placed close to the
rotating shaft for telemetry. Torque may then be mea-
sured as a function of the resonance frequency. Fig. 2
shows the general arrangement, and it will be noted that
a variable capacitor and a fixed inductor have been used.
rotating shaft
capactive variable
transducer frequency
maximum torque can be shown to be of the order of
0.3 mm.
A cross-section through the capacitive torque sensor is
shown in Fig. 3a. The device is arranged so that one set
tooth tooth
spacing width
displacement
d
dielectric
thickness
dielectric
tube serrated
shaft tooth
capacitance
plates
Fig. 3 Serrated tooth capacitance torque sensor
a Cross-section through a serrated tooth coaxial capacitor
b 'Shaft and tube' serrated tooth capacitance transducer
of serrated teeth are moved relative to a second set when
torque is applied. The serrations consist of a number of
copper strips, which are etched onto a flexible printed
circuit board (PCB) as shown in Fig. 4. One of the flex-
ible PCBs is bonded to the outside of the shaft, and the
other to the inside of a tube which is coaxial with the
shaft. Fig. 3b shows a longitudinal section through the
shaft and sensor. The tube is fixed to the shaft at one end,
and is free to move at the other. Thus, when torque is
applied to the assembly, a displacement occurs between
the outside of the shaft and the inside of the tube.
Changes in torque therefore cause change s in the capac-
itance between the two PCBs.
To calculate the best geometry for the capacitor, a
simple analysis of the behaviour of a serrated-tooth
capacitive sensor was undertaken. Fig. 5 shows a pair of
flat serrated capacitor plates. If the fringing effect at the

500—5000 kHz

Fig. 2 Grid dip circuit applied to a rotating shaft

A choice had to be made between using a capacitive

or an inductive torque sensor. As the aim was to sense
the small angular displacement along the shaft under-
going torsion, the capacitive approach was chosen,
because in general, capacitive displacement sensors are
more sensitive to small movements than inductive
devices. To illustrate the magnitude of the displacement
being sensed, the surface deflection of the driveshaft con- Fig. 4 Serrations consisting of a number of copper strips etched onto a
necting the roadwheel and gearbox of a Ford Escort at flexible PCB

IEE PROCEEDINGS, Vol. 135, Pt. D, No. 5, SEPTEMBER 1988 335

corners is neglected, the capacitance between the plates is
eoernqob
C =
d approximation, we have assumed that C is reduced in
fixed plate
moving plate
Fig. 5 Variable capacitance consisting of two serrated plates with n
pairs of teeth
The fractional change in capacitance SC/C due to a small
displacement Sq is
3C Sq0
C q0
Eqn. 3 indicates that the relationship between a change
in displacement and the corresponding change in capac-
itance is linear. However, the experimentally measured
characteristics of a serrated-plate capacitive transducer
show that flux leakage due to edge effects can be appre-
ciable. This is especially so when the active width q0 of a
pair of teeth (see Fig. 5) is of the same order or less than
the dielectric gap d. The flux distribution between the
teeth can be mapped by conformal representations [5, 6].
The ratio of nonleakage to total flux can be shown to be
given by eqn. 4 [7]:
nonleakage flux 1
total flux (4d/3q0)
By rearranging, eqn. 4 may be used to plot the sensitivity
of the transducer (measured as the ratio of nonleakage
flux to total flux) against d/q0 (the ratio of dielectric gap
to facing tooth width). It then becomes apparent that a
capacitive sensor of the form of Fig. 5 becomes less sensi-
tive as the ratio of dielectric gap d to facing tooth width
q0 increases, and that d/q0 should be minimised for great-
est sensitivity.
The foregoing analysis is for a flat serrated-tooth
capacitor. The situation is complicated here by the fact
that we are dealing with a pair of coaxial cylinders,
rather than flat plates. The capacitance of the pair of
coaxial cylinders shown in Fig. 6 is
2ne0 er b
C =•
In (rjrt)
outer cylinder
Fig. 6 Coaxial capacitor (cylindrical)
336
In the sensor described here the cylinders are not com-
plete but are composed of conducting strips, and so the
capacitance obtained will be less than C in eqn. 5. As an
(2)
proportion to the amount of copper removed from the
cylinders. If, for example, the width of the copper strips
equals their spacing, the capacitance obtained when the
copper strips on each cylinder face each other will be
about 50% of that obtained from complete cylinders.
Thus, for a serrated-tooth capacitive sensor, the
maximum capacitance occurs when the teeth are in
phase, and is, approximately,
2neoerb
C = (6)
(rjrt) {q + p)
where p and q are the tooth width and tooth spacing,
respectively.
As one cylinder is displaced with respect to the other
the capacitance varies cyclically, and is a minimum when
the copper strips are out of phase. Fig. 7 shows the varia-
tion as the cylinders rotate, and it will be noted that the
(3)
minimum C o is not zero. This is because there is always
some residual capacitance, owing to flux leakage. The
sensor must be operated within the region between one
peak and one trough, if ambiguous readings are to be
avoided.
operating
range
(4)
displacement
not to scale
Fig. 7 Graph of capacitance against displacement for angular rotation
of coaxial serrated plates relative to one another
It is also apparent that approximately linear behav-
iour is obtained, if the operating zone is restricted to the
central part of the region between a peak and a trough.
The above analysis shows that, to achieve the best
sensitivity, a compromise must be made between the fol-
lowing conflicting requirements:
(i) The ratio of dielectric gap d to tooth width q must
be minimised
(ii) The tooth spacing p must be maximised
(iii) The number of teeth must be maximised, because
the larger the capacitance the lower the operating fre-
(5)
quency.
Thus, for a given dielectric gap d, there will be an
optimum pattern of tooth width and spacing. A certain
amount of experimentation was necessary to determine
the optimum geometry. The arrangement used in the
final prototype was a tooth width of 1 mm, a spacing
between the teeth of 3 mm and a dielectric gap of
0.35 mm.
To increase the sensitivity of the device, a solid dielec-
tric was used, rather than a liquid or a gas. As the device
operates by sliding, the dielectric material has to have a
good resistance to abrasion. Mechanical robustness, tem-
perature stability and a high permittivity were also
needed. After lengthy testing, a two-part expoxy mixture
(Permabond E32) was chosen. This material was easy to
IEE PROCEEDINGS, Vol. 135, Pt. D, No. 5, SEPTEMBER 1988
machine, which meant that it could be applied in excess trated on optimising the design of the inductive telemetry
quantities and then turned down to the required thick- link between the rotating and nonrotating parts of the
ness. system.
The prototype torque sensor has been built on a Ford
Escort driveshaft. The shaft and (disassembled) sensor are
85
shown in Fig. 8. In order to test and calibrate the senor, a
static test rig was used, as shown in Fig. 9. In this rig, one
end of the shaft is anchored and torque is applied to the 80
other end by hanging weights on a lever arm.

70

60

2 50
Fig. 8 Prototype torque sensor G
O
Figure shows the shaft and (disassembled) sensor. Q.
O

30

20
20 40 60 80 100 120 140
equivalent applied load,kg
Fig. 10 Graph of sensor capacitance against torque
Lamina width = 1 mm; lamina spacing = 3 mm
Fig. 9 Static test rig for calibration of the sensor

The technique currently being used is to set the system

Using the simplified analysis described earlier, the
maximum capacitance of the sensor was calculated to be
about 80 pF. The prototype had a measured maximum
(using a capacitance bridge) of 86 pF, indicating that the
approximations made in the analysis were reasonable.
Fig. 10 shows the result of measuring the capacitance
of the device over its operating range (i.e. from when the
teeth are in phase to when they are out of phase). It can
be seen that, if an operating range of say 15 pF is chosen
in the middle of the range, a good approximation to lin-
earity (with respect to capacitance) is achieved. The
repeatability of the device, within this range, was assessed
by repeatedly applying and removing the torque, and was
found to be better than 0.2%. As frequency varies with
C~2, the transfer function with respect to frequency will
be nonlinear. However, it is still single-valued and can be
considered as approximately linear over a restricted
range. In the intended application, where the sensor
output may, for example, control an automatic gearbox,
absolute accuracy and linearity are probably of less
importance than repeatability.
up as shown in Fig. 1, but with the oscillator adjusted to
a fixed frequency some way below the resonance fre-
quency of the passive rotating circuit. Variations in
torque cause variations in the resonance frequency of the
passive circuit, and these cause the operating point on the
resonance curve to change as shown in Fig. 11. Thus,
instead of having to sweep the frequency of the oscillator
through a range, to detect the resonance as in the classic
grid dip approach described in the introduction, a fixed
frequency oscillator can be used. This greatly simplifies
the design and is much more suitable for continuous
measurement.
The torque is measured by measuring the current
drawn from a voltage-stable oscillator. Using this
approach, successful torque measurements have been
impedance impedance
z z
z
referred

4 Telemetry referred
f f
The development of the prototype sensor is now com- fSG f0 frequency SG 0 frequency
plete as described above, and work is currently concen- Fig. 11 How referred impedance changes with frequency

IEE PROCEEDINGS, Vol. 135, Pt. D, No. 5, SEPTEMBER 1988 337

carried out with a 5 mm airgap between the rotating and
stationary parts of the system. Fairly large inductors
(around 10 H) were used to keep the resonance frequency
as low as possible, to avoid RF and eddy-current effects.
However, the number of turns of wire needed to obtain
inductors of this size had an appreciable resistance, which
gave the system an undesirably low Q. Future work will
concentrate on ways of overcoming this problem.
5 Practical difficulties
There are a number of practical difficulties which have to
be overcome in the development of a transducer for auto-
motive use. The automotive environment is one of the
most challenging for the sensor engineer, as it encom-
passes extremes of temperature (typically — 30°C to
+ 80°C in the driveshaft region), vibration, moisture,
abrasion and electromagnetic interference. Temperature
testing has been undertaken on the prototype sensor and
it was found that the linearity of the device worsened as
the temperature was raised. At 90°C, the maximum non-
linearity was 3%, within the operating region of Fig. 10.
However, the repeatability appeared to be unaffected by
temperature. As discussed earlier, repeatability is prob-
ably more important than absolute accuracy in the
intended application. Lowering the temperature to
— 15°C had no effect on the device's operation.
6 Conclusions
The work described in this paper has demonstrated that
noncontact torque measurement can be achieved by the
use of a capacitive sensor as part of an inductively
coupled resonant circuit. None of the parts of the system
are expensive, and it seems likely that further develop-
ment will result in a low-cost torque sensor for use on
338
rotating shafts. At present, the main difficulty in using the
system described here is the rather laborious method
used to apply the copper strips on flexible printed circuit
boards to the shaft. However, alternative methods of
applying conducting patterns to shafts, by means of
thick-film printing, are now being investigated. It is
hoped that this will lead to a significant reduction in both
the cost and the difficulty of applying the capacitive
sensors.
7 Acknowledgments
The author would like to thank Mr. J. Cary and Mr. J.
William-Ellis, formerly with the Mechanical Engineering
Department of Southampton University, who carried out
many of the tests described in this paper, Mr. C.R. Peach
who manufactured the prototype, and Mr. M. Combes
who made the original drawings for this paper.
8 References
1 WESTBROOK, M.H.: 'Sensors for automotive applications', J. Phys.
£,1985,18, pp. 751-758
2 MACKAY, R.: 'Biomedical telemetry' (Wiley, 1970)
3 JONES, B.E., and SIVITER, P.J.: 'Continuous monitor of the safety
limits of vehicle tyre pressure using a non-contact form of passive
telemetry'. Conf. Automotive Electronics, IEE, Savoy Place, London,
1979
4 TAKAMI, K., KOMATSU, T., HORIE, T., YAMASAKI, S., and
MOCHIZUKI, A.: 'Capacitance thermometer applied to a railway
traction motor', in PLUMB, H.H. (Ed.): 'Proceedings of the Fifth
Symposium on temperature'. Washington, 1971 (Instrument Society
of America, Pittsburgh, 1972), pp. 1311-1319
5 CARATHEODORY, C : 'Conformal representations' (Cambridge
University Press, 1941)
6 WEBER, E.: 'Electromagnetic fields: theory and application' (Wiley,
1950)
7 NEUBERT, H.: 'Instrument transducers' (Clarendon Press, 1975)
IEE PROCEEDINGS, Vol. 135, Pt. D, No. 5, SEPTEMBER 1988