A system and method for tracking a location of a moving element on a conveyor system. The system including: magnetic sensors; a magnetic encoder strip that is readable by the magnetic sensors; and a processor for receiving and processing the sensor readings to determine a location of the moving element. The method including: sensing a current location of the moving element, wherein at least one of the magnetic sensors and magnetic encoder are associated with the moving element; and providing a current location to a conveyor system controller. The system may further include: color sensors; and a color gradient encoder strip that is readable by the color sensors, wherein the color gradient encoder strip and color sensors provide moving element location at start up and the magnetic sensors and magnetic encoder strip track moving element location during operation. In this case, the method is adjusted accordingly.

This invention provides a linear encoder having an arbitrary size while maintaining high producibility. An absolute linear encoder includes a long scale formed by continuously connecting a first short scale and a second short scale in which a first cyclic bit string and a second cyclic bit siring generated using the same initial value for different generator polynomials are arranged, and at least two sensors arranged at positions facing the long scale side by side in a longitudinal direction of the long scale.

Apparatus and associated methods relate to cascaded sets of two or more individual permanent magnets distributed in a predetermined spatial relationship on a source carrier configured to translate proximate two or more magnetic field sensors distributed in a predetermined spatial relationship on a reference carrier. In an illustrative example, the permanent magnets may be arranged in at least two predetermined orientations. For example, each of the permanent magnets may direct its field in a predetermined orientation to produce a unique output code from a set of the magnetic field sensors. The output code may, for example, uniquely identify a relative position between the source carrier and the reference carrier. The magnetic field sensors may be, for example, anisotropic magneto-resistive elements. Cascaded sets of permanent magnets may cost-effectively increase the dynamic range of the relative position between the source carrier and the reference carrier by adding additional magnetic targets.

An inductive sensing-based user interface device which includes a conductive barrier with at least one aperture, a magnetic flux modifier attached to a rotary member on one side of the barrier and an inductive structure on an opposed side of the barrier aligned with the aperture, magnetically coupled to the flux modifier, wherein a change in sensed inductance is used to determine rotational input.

Example electronic devices, including but not limited to implantable medical devices, and methods employing dynamic announcing for creation of wireless communication connections are disclosed herein. In an example, an electronic device includes a wireless communication interface to transmit announcement signals for creating a wireless communication connection with the external device. The electronic device also includes a sensor to detect a characteristic of an environment external to the electronic device, and a control circuit including an announcement timing control module to dynamically control timing of the announcement signals based on the detected characteristic.

A readhead is provided for reading an absolute scale, optionally a passive magnetic scale, that encodes a series of data bits. The readhead includes a plurality of sensors, such as an array of Hall sensors, for producing a plurality of sensor signals. A plurality of signal combiners are also provided to receive at least two of the sensor signals and produce therefrom a combined sensor signal. A plurality of data bit extractors are arranged to receive at least two combined sensor signals and to determine the value of a data bit encoded in an associated absolute scale. The readhead also comprises an incremental signal generator for generating at least one incremental signal from the combined sensor signals produced by a plurality of the signal combiners. In this manner, both absolute and incremental position is measured.

Disclosed is a toothed wheel for a camshaft, forming a target for a camshaft position sensor, the toothed wheel including a circular body including two opposite main faces, and at least four teeth distributed around the circumference of the circular body, each tooth including two edges, one corresponding to a rising edge and the other to a falling edge, according to a direction of rotation of the wheel, the angular separation between the edges of each tooth being different for each tooth, characterized in that the four teeth are shaped so that the toothed wheel includes, considering the same main face and the same direction of rotation of the wheel: four edges of the same first rising or falling type spaced apart by 90° respectively, and three edges of the second falling or rising type respectively, spaced apart by 120° respectively.

The various embodiment of the present disclosure provides a system to define and identify an absolute mechanical reference position for a rotating element, The system comprises a radial ring magnet comprising plurality of pole pairs mounted to the rotating element, a first magnetic sensor in proximity of the radial ring magnet to detect angular position of said rotating element, at least one second magnetic sensor in proximity of the radial ring magnet to detect the passage of each of the pole pair and a control module adapted to define said absolute mechanical position by computing a unique first set of feature values for each of said plurality of pole pairs based on responses of said first magnetic sensor and said second magnetic sensor. The first set of feature values is stored in a memory unit.

There is provided an absolute encoder advantageous in accuracy of an output thereof against a defect in a scale thereof. In the absolute encoder, a detector detects a part of an array of marks of the scale, and outputs a data sequence corresponding to the part. A processor stores information indicating a correspondence between each of a plurality of code sequences and an absolute coordinate of motion of the scale, and outputs information of the absolute coordinate based on the data sequence and the information. The processor detects an error of the data sequence, and performs rewriting of the information based on the detected error.

A system and method for determining information related to a rotation of a shaft. The method includes receiving a signal associated with a plurality of targets and gaps passing by a sensor. The targets and gaps are positioned around a circumference of a wheel that is fixed for rotation with the shaft. The method includes forming a sensed target-and-gap sequence based on the signal, wherein the sensed target-and-gap sequence represents a subset of the targets and gaps. The method further includes comparing the sensed target-and-gap sequence to a set of known target-and-gap sequences stored in memory. Each known target-and-gap sequence is associated with a respective known circumferential portion of the wheel. The method also includes determining which respective, known target-and-gap sequence is identical to the sensed target-and-gap sequence.