Design and Analysis of Inductive Reluctance Position Sensor

This paper presents the electro-magnetic analysis of a reluctance-type linear position sensor designed for precision position detection. Compared with conventional optical linear sensor, although the linear sensors have lower precision, they are widely employed for position detection in modern industrial machines due to inexpensive and robust environmental properties. The objectives of this study are to establish the design steps of the sensor based on inductive coils with the help of CAE analysis on the output signals of the magnetic circuit model given by transient magnetic field simulation results. From the sensor geometry generated by a CAD system, electric excitation conditions in the electromagnetic field based on FEM are entered into a scanning head model and a scale model with a graduation of periodically variable reluctance. With emphasis on signal harmonics and imbalanced phase magnitudes, the final electromagnetic model is determined with pertinent geometric data to build a proficiently accurate magnetic linear position sensor for heavy industrial applications.