JP2543393B2 - Inclination sensor - Google Patents

Description

Description: BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION The present invention relates to a tilt angle sensor for detecting a tilt angle or a horizontal level, and particularly to a device having no base for angle detection, such as a self-propelled type. It is suitable for detecting the angle of the tip of a robot arm.

[Prior Art] A conventional tilt angle sensor that uses a potentiometer, a donut-shaped transparent container that encloses a liquid containing small air bubbles, and detects the position of the air bubble with respect to the container. There is known a device in which a liquid dielectric material is sealed between electrodes and a capacitance change between the electrodes is detected.

[Problems to be Solved by the Invention] In the above-mentioned conventional technique, the one using a potentiometer has a mechanical sliding portion, so the life of this sliding portion is short, and the one using a liquid is in a stable state. There was a problem that it took time.

[Means for Solving the Problems] The present invention has been made to solve the above conventional problems, and includes a plurality of electrodes arranged in parallel on a cylindrical substrate at regular intervals, A signal detector having a center of rotation at the center of a cylindrical substrate provided with the plurality of electrodes; and a decoder for applying a scanning pulse to the plurality of electrodes in sequence.
This invention proposes a tilt angle sensor having a control circuit that detects a scanning pulse applied from the decoder through electrodes and a signal detector and performs arithmetic processing on the detected signal.

[Operation] In the present invention, the inclination angle on the electrode side is detected by utilizing the fact that the signal changes with the movement of the electrode corresponding to the signal detector.

Embodiment An embodiment of the present invention will be described with reference to the accompanying drawings. FIG. 1 is a schematic diagram showing the principle of the present invention, and FIG. 2 is an overall configuration block diagram. In this embodiment, an electrode adopting a capacitive coupling method will be described. The signal detector 1 includes a detection portion 4 at the tip of a support shaft 2 at the center of a substrate 3 made of a synthetic resin and a substrate 3.
The degree to which a plurality of electrodes 6 arranged on the surface are capacitively coupled (about
5 mm or less). Further, a weight 5 is suspended on the support shaft 2 so that the signal detector 1 always maintains a vertical state. In this state, the substrate 3 is fixed to the arm tip of a self-propelled robot (not shown). When the robot arm changes its angle with respect to the vertical axis, the signal detector 1 is positioned in the vertical direction, so that the electrode 6 facing the detection portion 4 of the signal detector 1 changes. Therefore, it can be obtained by calculating the amount of change (rotation angle) of the electrode 6.

Next, the actual operation will be described with reference to FIG. In order to help understanding of the description, the cylindrical substrate 3 is developed and disclosed as a plane. The electrodes 6, 6, ... Of the substrate 3 are connected to the decoder 7 by a circuit arranged on the contactable substrate. The decoder 7 is controlled by the control circuit 11 to sequentially apply the scanning pulse to the electrode 6 (in the drawing, it is a contactless circuit, but it is actually a non-contact circuit). The scanning pulse from the near electrode 6 is applied to the amplifier 8 via the detection part 4. The pulse amplified by the amplifier 8 is applied to the comparator 9, and the comparator 9 compares it with a preset reference potential, and when it exceeds the reference potential, it is applied to the arithmetic circuit 10 as a digitized signal. The arithmetic circuit 10 compares the address of the pulse sent by the control circuit 11 to the decoder 7 with the pulse received from the comparator 9 to determine the position of the signal detector 1 on the substrate 3, that is, This means that the inclinations of the cylindrical substrate 3 and the signal detector 1 have been detected.

[Effects of the Invention] The present invention has the above-described configuration,
In addition, a highly stable tilt angle sensor can be configured.

In the present embodiment, the specification of the detected electrodes is described with a simple circuit connection of the amplifier, the comparator, and the arithmetic circuit in the case where the electrode substrate has a cylindrical shape, but in order to improve the detection accuracy, for example, Japanese Patent Publication No. Sho 53-19380, etc. It is also possible to use.

[Brief description of drawings]

The drawings show one embodiment of the present invention. FIG. 1 is a schematic diagram showing the principle of the present invention, and FIG. 2 is an overall configuration block diagram. 1 ... Signal detector, 3 ... Substrate, 4 ... Detection part, 5 ...
... weight, 6 ... electrode, 7 ... decoder, 8 ... amplifier,
9 ... Comparator, 10 ... Arithmetic circuit, 11 ... Control circuit

Claims (1)

(57) [Claims] 1. A plurality of electrodes arranged in parallel on a cylindrical substrate at regular intervals, and a signal detector having a center of rotation at the center of the cylindrical substrate on which the plurality of electrodes are arranged, A decoder for sequentially applying a scan pulse to the plurality of electrodes; and a control circuit for detecting the scan pulse applied from the decoder through the electrodes and the signal detector and processing the detected signals. Inclination angle sensor.