An Inductive Sensor for Two-Dimensional Displacement Measurement

The simultaneous and independent measurements of two-dimensional (2D) displacements are significant for 2D positioning. Here a planar inductive sensor which is based on the principle of electromagnetic induction is proposed. The sensor is composed of a primary coil and a secondary coil. The primary coil consists of an array of planar spiral coils which are arranged as an m × n matrix. The primary coil is supplied with 4 kHz alternating current to generate an array of pulsating magnetic field. The secondary coil contains four spiral coils which are arranged as a 2 × 2 matrix. Thereby, four roads of modulated signals whose amplitudes vary with displacements of the secondary coil along x- and y-axis are induced. An algorithm based on the Coordinate Rotation Digital Computer algorithm is introduced to resolve the planar displacements. The structure and working principle of the sensor are proposed firstly. Then, the finite element analysis of the electromagnetic model and the numerical simulation of the algorithm are given. An experiment has been performed on a sensor prototype and the results show that the proposed scheme is feasible. Measurement error analysis of the sensor has been pursued at the end of the paper.