A simple microcontroller based digitizer for differential inductive sensors

This paper presents a simple digitizer suitable for differential variable inductive/reluctance sensors. The proposed scheme uses two digital I/O pins, a counter and a comparator of a microcontroller and obtains a digital output directly proportional to the measurand which is sensed using a differential variable inductive/reluctance sensor possessing either a linear or an inverse transfer characteristic. The scheme uses a ratio-metric approach in the computation and hence the output is less sensitive to variation in the parameters such as excitation voltage, reference voltage, offset of the comparator, etc. A prototype of the proposed system has been built and tested using standard variable inductors that emulated a differential inductive sensor following an inverse characteristic. The output recorded was linear across the full range and worst-case error noted was less than 0.3 %. For the prototype developed, the time taken to complete a measurement was 200 μs. The prototype digitizer has been interfaced with a commercially available LVDT and tested. The worst-case error observed in this test was 0.77%. Also, the same digitizer has been employed to get a digital readout from a differential variable reluctance based displacement sensor. The worst-case error was less than 0.83%. The test results establish the efficacy of, the simple and cost effective, scheme developed.