A first sensor signal and a second sensor signal are provided by a sensor unit to an evaluation unit. The first sensor signal is dependent on the angular position and is associated with a first detection position, and the second sensor signal is associated with a second detection position lying about the rotational axis perpendicular to the first detection position. An orthogonal error is converted by the evaluation unit into an amplitude difference between respective amplitudes of the first and second sensor signals based on a coordinate transformation of the first and second sensor signals. Each of the first and second sensor signals are adjusted by the evaluation unit based on the amplitude difference. An angular position of a rotational component is determined by the evaluation unit based on output from an a tan 2-function that takes the adjusted first and second sensor signals as input.

A magnetic field sensor comprises at least one magnetic field sensing element configured to generate a measured magnetic field signal responsive to an external magnetic field; a diagnostic circuit configured to generate a diagnostic signal, wherein the diagnostic signal is not dependent on a measured magnetic field; a signal path comprising an amplifier and an analog-to-digital converter for processing the measured magnetic field signal to generate a sensor output signal indicative of the external magnetic field during a measured time period and for processing the diagnostic signal during a diagnostic time period; and a switch coupled to receive the measured magnetic field signal and the diagnostic signal and direct the measured magnetic field signal to the signal path during the measured time period and direct the diagnostic signal to the signal path during the diagnostic time period.

Disclosed is a method for estimating angular errors of coders for a looped system including a rotating actuator and an angle coder producing a position measurement signal, and including a calculation device controlling the actuator, the calculation device receiving a setpoint signal, as well as the measurement signal, for looping, the calculation device calculating in a corrector a control signal. In a test phase, a specific corrector C.sub.ω.sub.rj(q) is synthesised for constant rotation speed ω.sub.rj, the corrector having substantially zero gain at the frequency and harmonics, resulting in opening the loop at the frequencies, a matrix relation is established between position measurements and a function of parameters characterizing the coder errors and the torque ripples, the test phase repeats with different speeds, the matrix relations are concatenated producing an identifiable global matrix relation, the encoder error and torque ripple parameters are estimated by resolution of the global matrix relation.

An encoder apparatus includes a detection unit, a scale disposed to oppose the detection unit and relatively rotatable with respect to the detection unit, and a processor configured to process an output signal output from the detection unit to obtain a relative position of the scale with respect to a standard position and thus detect an absolute position of the scale. The processor is configured to execute a setting process in which a position where a deviation amount of the scale in a predetermined direction with respect to a rotation axis is equal to or smaller than a threshold value is set as the standard position, the deviation amount changing in accordance with relative rotation of the scale with respect to the detection unit.

Sensor devices and corresponding methods are provided. When a signal path output (COMP OUT) indicates no threshold crossings, diagnosis is performed with a timing based on a clock. In case threshold crossings are indicated, diagnosis is performed with a timing based on threshold crossings.

An angle sensor comprising: a plurality of magnetic field sensing elements configured to detect a magnetic field and generate a respective plurality of analog magnetic field signals; a plurality of analog frontend circuits each analog frontend circuit associated with a respective magnetic field sensing element; and a digital feedback circuit configured to generate digital magnetic field signals from the plurality of analog magnetic field signals and generate digital error correction values, wherein the plurality of analog frontend circuits are configured to obtain the digital error correction values from the digital feedback circuit, generate analog correction values from the digital error correction values, and apply the analog correction values to the plurality of analog magnetic field signals to generate a plurality of corrected analog magnetic field signals.

In one aspect, an integrated circuit (IC) includes a magnetic-field sensor. The magnetic-field sensor includes digital circuitry that includes a first and second analog-to-digital converter (ADC). The digital circuitry is configured to receive a first and second analog output signals and, using the first and second ADC, configured to convert the first and second analog output signals to a first and second digital signals. The magnetic-field sensor also includes diagnostic circuitry configured to receive, from the digital circuitry, an input signal related to the first and/or the second digital signals and configured to provide a test signal at a pin of the IC. In response to a range parameter, the diagnostic circuitry is further configured to provide the test signal comprising a range of codes from the first and/or the second ADC corresponding to the range parameter.

A position sensor device includes position sensor elements for generating analog sense signals. A digitization circuit is provided for a digital signal representative of the input phase based on the analog sense signals and a digital processing unit. An output signal is indicative of the position based on the first output of the processing unit. The processing unit comprises an error signal generator for computing an error signal indicative of a phase difference between the digital signal and a feedback signal. A digital filter filters the error signal to generate the first output. A feedback path provides the feedback signal based on the first output and a filter selector to select a filter to be applied from different filters. At least one input on which a common filter circuit operates is scaled differently for each of the different filters to select different filter bandwidths.

An offset correction device includes: an amplitude adjuster that adjusts an amplitude of a detection signal output from an encoder by adjusting a gain of the detection signal so that the amplitude is within a predetermined range; an offset corrector that corrects an offset of an amplitude center of the detection signal; and a storage that stores a relationship between the gain and an offset amount in advance, wherein the offset corrector refers to the relationship stored in the storage when the amplitude adjuster changes the gain, obtains the offset amount corresponding to the changed gain, and corrects the offset based on the obtained offset amount.

A method for compensating interference in a measured angle signal of a magnetic angle sensor of an electrical machine, wherein the method includes: receiving a measured angle signal, estimating a current error and/or a misalignment error in the measured angle signal, calculating an expected rotor angle from the measured angle signal, taking into account the estimated current error and/or the estimated misalignment error, such as during operation of the electrical machine. The present invention furthermore relates to a microcontroller for calculating interference in a measured angle signal of a magnetic angle sensor of an electrical machine, to an electrical machine having a magnetic angle sensor and a microcontroller and to a computer program product.