(Digital Presentation) A Novel Method for Precise Measurement of Displacement Using Eddy Currents at High Temperature

Abstract

In this paper, a novel method of measuring displacement using eddy currents at high temperature is presented. The measurement system consists of a sensing coil created on a PCB by patterns, a parallel turning circuit and a microcontroller including a signal processing unit. When the gap distance between the conductive target and the sensing coil changes, the inductance value of the coil varies by the influence of the eddy current. By detecting the change in the inductance, we have proposed a novel method to precisely measure the displacement of the coil. In order to make the optimal coil, a theoretical analysis was conducted using the inductance calculation theory, and the magnetic field distribution and inductance variation of the coil were analyzed using ANSYS Maxwell. Then, the coil was fabricated as a PCB, and the measured result value was compared with each analysis result, and the coil most suitable for the system was selected. The circuit was designed so that the characteristics of the synchronization amplification circuit in the detection system were minimized in temperature change, and the temperature characteristics were primarily corrected in hardware by adding a temperature correction circuit. The output value of the primarily corrected tuning amplification circuit improved the temperature characteristics of the sensor by secondarily correcting the temperature characteristics in firmware, and is designed to meet the IPC class 3 specification. The sensing range of the implemented measurement system was 0.0 ~ 3.8 mm, the nominal value of the fabricated sensing coil was 11.2uH, and the resonance frequency of the tuning circuit including the sensing coil was 300Khz. The operating temperature of the system is – 40 ~ 150 ℃ and the resolution is 0.15 mm within the range of 0.0 ~ 3.8 mm. From the experimental results, Comparing the change in inductance with respect to the moving distance of the measurement system and the displacement signal measured by the system, it can be seen that as the inductance increases, the displacement output increases, and as the inductance decreases, the displacement also decreases. Considering this, it was found through the system that inductance and output of displacement are correlated, and is seen operates stably at high temperature and has linearity. Figure 1