Instrumention Qualifier

Displacement Sensors

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 Displacment Sensors
• This type of sensor is concerned with the
measurement of the amount by which
some object has been moved.
• They also have two close cousins in the
position and proximity sensors.
• The position sensor is concerned with the
determination of the position of some
object with reference to some reference
point.
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 Displacment Sensors
• while proximity sensors are a form of
position sensor and are used to determine
when an object has moved to within some
particular critical distance of the sensor.
• The position and proximity sensors are
essentially devices which give on-off
outputs where as the displacement sensor
would have to give a proportional output to
describe the magnitude of a movement.

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 Potentiometer sensor.
• The potentiometer sensor consists of a
resistance element with a sliding contact
which can be moved over the length of the
element (see diagram below).

Fig 1 Potentiometer Displacement Meter 4

• These elements can be used for linear or
rotary displacements.
• The displacement being converted into a
potential difference.
• The rotary type consists of a circular wire-
wound track or a film of conductive plastic
over which a rotatable sliding contact can
be rotated.
• The track may be a single turn or helical.
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Fig 1 Potentiometer Displacement Meter

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• With a constant input voltage Vex, between
terminals 1 and 3, the output voltage Vout
between terminals 2 and 3 is a fraction of the
input voltage, the fraction depending on the ratio
of the resistance R23 between terminal 2 and 3
compared with the total resistance R13 between
terminals 1 and 3, i.e. Vout/Vex = R23/R13.
• If the track has a constant resistance per unit
length, or per unit angle, then the output is
proportional to the distance through which the
slider has moved or the angle through which the
slider has rotated.
• Hence a linear or angular displacement can be
converted into a potential difference.
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 Wire-wound type
• With a wire-wound track the slider in moving
from one turn to the other will change the
voltage output in steps, each step being a
movement of one turn.
• If the potentiometer has N turns then the
resolution, as a percentage, is 100/N. Thus the
resolution of a wire track is limited by the
diameter of the wire used and typically ranges
from about 1.5mm for a coarsely wound track to
0.5mm for a finely wound one.
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 Accuracy and Errors
• Errors due to non-linearity of the track tend to range from
less than 0.1% to about 1%.
• The track resistance tends to range from about 20 to
200k.
• Conductive plastic has ideally infinite resolution
• Errors due to non-linearity of the track are of the order of
0.05% and resistance values from about 500 to 80k.
• The conductive plastic has a higher temperature
coefficient of resistance than the wire and so
temperature changes have a greater effect on accuracy.

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 Disadvantages
• One important disadvantage of the potentiometer sensor
is the effect of a load RL connected across the output.
• The potential difference across the load VL is only
directly proportional to VO if the load resistance is
infinite.
• For finite loads, however, the effect of the load is to
transform what was a linear relationship between the
output voltage and angle into a non-linear relationship.
• So the lower the resistance of the potentiometer the
better and the higher the resistance of the load the
better.
• Obviously some sort of op-amp buffering would be
advantageous here as well.

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 Capacitive element.
• From previous courses you may recall that the
Capacitance C of a parallel plate capacitor is
given by  0 r A
C
d
 r is the relative permittivity of the dielectric
between the plates.
 0 is the permittivity of free space which is a
constant.
• A is the area of overlap between the two plates
• d is the distance separating the plates.
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 Capacitive element
• Capacitive sensors can
thus take advantage of
these properties in the
sensing of movement.
• Use in linear
displacement could
take the form of one of
the options in the
diagram.

Fig 2 Capacitive Displacement 12

• In (a) one of the plates is moved the
displacement so that the plate separation
changes.
• So if the displacement causes the
separation d to increase then the
capacitance decreases in a proportional
manner.

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• In (b) displacement causes the area of
overlap to change. If the displacement
causes there to be less overlap then this
will have the effect of decreasing the
overall Capacitance.

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• In (c) the displacement causes the
dielectric between the plates to change.
• Thus a displacement will cause there to be
less of the dielectric between the plates
leaving an air dielectric for part of the plate
separation.
• This will usually lead to a reduction in the
capacitance.
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 LVDT (Linear Variable Differential
Transformer)
• The linear variable differential transformer which
is generally just referred to by the abbreviation
LVDT, consists of three coils symmetrically
spaced along an insulated tube.

Fig 3 LVDT 16
 LVDT
• The central coil is the primary coil and the
other two are identical secondary coils
which are connected in series in such a
way that their outputs oppose each other.
• A magnetic core is moved through the
central tube as a result of the
displacement being monitored.

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• When there is an alternating voltage input to the
primary coil, alternating EMFs are induced in the
secondary coils.
• With the magnetic core central, the amount of
magnetism material in each of the secondary
coils is the same.
• Thus the EMFs induced in each coil are the
same.
• Since they are so connected that their outputs
oppose eachother, the net result is zero output.

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• However when the core is displaced from the
central position there is a greater amount of
magnetic core in one than the other, e.g. more in
secondary coil 2 than coil 1.
• The result is that a greater EMF is induced in
one coil than the other.
• There is then a net output from the two coils.
• Since a greater displacement means even more
core in one coil than the other, the output, the
difference between the two EMFs increases the
greater the displacement being monitored.

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• Linearity is excellent over the design range of
movement, typically 0.5% or better.
• The LVDT offers good accuracy, linearity,
sensitivity, infinite resolution, as well as
frictionless operation and ruggedness.
• A wide variety of measurement ranges are
available in different LVDTs, typically from
±100μm to ±25cm.
• Typical excitation voltages range from 1V to 24V
RMS, with frequencies from 50Hz to 20kHz.

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