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Design and Implementation of a Relaxation Oscillator based Interface Circuit for LVDT

Design and Implementation of a Relaxation Oscillator based Interface Circuit for LVDT

Date30th Sep 2020

Time04:00 PM

Venue https://meet.google.com/fzh-hsbs-ruc

PAST EVENT

Details

An electronic interfacing scheme for a linear variable differential transformer (LVDT) will be presented in this seminar. The new scheme does not require a precision sine wave oscillator, with stable amplitude and frequency, for excitation or any phase matching circuit like traditional interfacing methods. In the proposed scheme, the primary and the secondary coils of the LVDT are integral parts of a relaxation oscillator (RO). The RO injects a current waveform with a triangular shape through the primary coil which in turn induces a square-shaped voltage waveform in the secondary coils. The RO utilizes the amplitudes of those waveforms and generates a pulse width modulated (PWM) output signal whose duty cycle ratio is proportional to the measurand, i.e., the position of the core. This quasi-digital PWM signal is passed through a low-pass filter to obtain an analog output. Thetime period measurement of the PWM signal, using a counter, yields a digital output. This method guarantees good stability since the output is dependent only on a pair of dc reference voltages apart from the transformation constant of the sensor. A detailed analysis of the sources of error, their effect on the performance of the scheme, and appropriate design choices for error mitigation will be presented in the seminar. A prototype of the proposed circuit has been built and tested in the laboratory. The nonlinearity error noted from the tests conducted was less than 0.16% for the analog output and 0.18% for the digital output. A resolution of 11 bits was achieved for the digital output. The details will be discussed in the seminar.

Speakers

Harikumar Ganesan (EE16D204)

Electrical Engineering