An inductive position sensor and method for detecting a movement of a conductive target, having: at least a first and a second transmitter coil having the same shape and which are phase-shifted to each other, at least one oscillator for generating a first and a second transmitter signal having the same shape and which are phase shifted to each other and are applied to the first transmitter coil and second transmitter coil respectively, at least one receiver coil, and a processing unit for determining a phase-shift between the first or second transmitter signal and a receiver signal received at the receiver coil; the determined phase-shift corresponding to the position of the conductive target above the first and second transmitter coils.

A rotation angle sensing device is suggested, said device including: a magnetic field source that is mechanically coupled to a rotatable shaft; at least one conductive target that is mechanically coupled to the rotatable shaft; a magnetic angle sensor that is configured to detect the magnetic field of the magnetic field source; and at least one coil that is configured to excite an eddy current in the at least one conductive target and to receive a signal induced by the eddy current. Also, a corresponding method is provided.

A position sensor is provided. The position sensor includes a target and a segment sensor element. The segment sensor element defines a circumferential direction and a radial direction. The segment sensor element includes a transmit coil. The segment sensor element includes a plurality of receive coils positioned within a space defined by the transmit coil. The plurality of receive coils are offset relative to one another. The shape of each of the plurality of receive coils corresponds to a periodic waveform having a radial width that varies along the circumferential direction. Furthermore, the shape of at least one receive coil of the plurality of receive coils is distorted along at least one of the radial direction or the circumferential direction.

An inductive position encoder includes a scale, a detector and a signal processor. The scale includes a periodic pattern of signal modulating elements (SME) arranged along a measuring axis (MA) with a spatial wavelength W1. The detector comprises sensing elements and a field generating coil that generates a changing magnetic flux. The sensing elements comprise conductive loops that provide detector signals responsive to a local effect on the changing magnetic flux provided by adjacent SME's. Some or all of the conductive loops are configured according to an intra-loop shift relationship wherein equal “shifted proportions” of a loop are shifted in opposite directions by W1/4K. K is an odd integer. The intra-loop shift relationship can be used to suppress Kth spatial harmonic components in the detector signals, while also overcoming longstanding detrimental layout problems. It combines easily with “loop width” spatial filtering techniques that filter other spatial harmonic signal components.

An inductive position detector for stylus position measurement in a scanning probe comprises a coil board configuration located along a central axis in the probe. The coil board configuration includes a field generating coil configuration and top and bottom axial and rotary sensing coil configurations. The field generating coil configuration generates a changing magnetic flux, and coil signals indicate conductive disruptor element and/or stylus positions. At least one misalignment compensation element is configured to reduce a signal offset that results from a misalignment of at least one coil of the coil board configuration (e.g., the coil board configuration may comprise a printed circuit board with a plurality of layers in which the coils are located and the misalignment of the at least one coil may result from a registration error, such as within manufacturing tolerances, in a layer to layer registration as part of a fabrication process).

An inductive angle sensor is provided with a stator with an excitation oscillating circuit and a pickup coil arrangement and also with a rotor which is arranged rotatably with respect to the stator and comprises an inductive target arrangement. The excitation oscillating circuit can be energizable with an alternating current, in order to induce an induction current in the target arrangement, and the target arrangement can be designed to generate a magnetic field in reaction to the induction current, which magnetic field in turn generates induction signals in the pickup coil arrangement. The angle sensor further comprises a circuit that is designed to derive an induction strength signal representing the signal strength of the induction signals from the induction signals and to ascertain the spatial clearance between the rotor and the stator on the basis of the induction strength signal, and to generate a corresponding clearance signal.

A system includes a sensor integrated circuit (IC), including a driver adapted to be coupled to an oscillator, the driver including first and second transistors. The sensor IC includes an amplitude control amplifier coupled to the first transistor. The sensor IC also includes a common mode control amplifier coupled to the second transistor. The sensor IC includes a handover control circuit coupled to the amplitude control amplifier and configured to hand off an operation from the sensor IC to a different sensor IC, the handover control circuit including a resistor network coupled to a switch network.

A sensor system for determining at least one rotation characteristic of an element rotating about at least one rotation axis includes at least one sensor wheel having a profile and being connectable to the rotating element; and at least one inductive position sensor including at least one coil arrangement that includes at least one excitation coil and at least two receiver coils, where at least in sections of the at least two receiver coils have a sinusoidal shape.

The present invention relates to an inductive position sensor configured to determine a position of a target device. The inductive position sensor comprises at least two coils for determining the position. At least two of the at least two coils for determining the position at least partially overlap. At least one coil of the at least two at least partially overlapping coils is a transmitter coil and at least one of the at least two coils is a receiver coil. At least one of the at least two coils has N.sup.2+R portions substantially equally distributed over N substantially parallel planes, N being an integer larger than or equal to two and R an integer larger than or equal to zero. For each of the at least two coils the portions distributed over the N substantially parallel planes are substantially identical, so that mutual inductance between the at least two coils is substantially unaffected by misalignments between the N substantially parallel planes.

A sensor, comprising: a processing circuitry configured to: receive a first signal that is generated by a first magnetic field sensing element, the first signal being generated in response to a magnetic field that is indicative of rotation of a target; identify N local maxima of the first signal, where N is a positive integer, and N>1; identify N local minima of the first signal; generate a first offset adjustment signal and a first gain adjustment signal based on: (i) a first sum of the local maxima of the first signal and (ii) a second sum of the local minima of the first signal; and adjust the first signal based on the first offset adjustment signal and the first gain adjustment signal.