54.6: A NEW TWO-AXIS MAGNETIC POSITION SENSOR Christian Schott Sentron AG: 2ug, Switzerland christian@)sentron.ch Robert Racz Sentron AG. Zug, Switzerland robi@sentron.ch Abstract We describe a new contactless sensor, which measures the position of a magnet along two axes. The sensor is inherently non-sensitive to the magnet movement along the third axis, temperature variations and aging, and does not require calibration. This is achieved by transforming a translation of the magnet into a rotation of a magnetic fleld, and by measuring the direction of the magnetic field ‘rather than its strength. The direction of the magnetic field is then measured by two twovaris Hall sensors. Keywords Hall sensor, magnetic position sensor, contac-Less position measurement INTRODUCTION Position sensors encompass a wide range of sensors, switches and technologies that are used to determine the position, speed or drsction of movement of a given target Linear position devices include capacitive, eddy current, fiber optic, Hall effect, inductive, magneto-resstve, optical triangulation, photoelectric, ultrasonic, and variable resistance technology sensors, Hall effect magactic position sensors are the preferred solution for many applications, since they are contac-les, small in size, robust, rliable, not sensitive to harsh and polluted environmental condition, and low-cost But the known Hall effect based position sensors are limited in accuracy by offset, noise, temperature dependence and ageing effects. This is the reason why traditionally they are mainly used as contact-less switches detecting ust the presence of @ magnet or magnetized body and not as linear sensing devices. Through the co- imtegration of Hall element(s) and electronics on the same chip, offset and 1/f noise can be effectively reduced by the spinning current technique. However, to compensate such a position sensor for drift with temperature and ageing effects ‘of the Hall sensor and the magnet, generally more involved and expensive treatment is required, such as calibration and digital data processing, ‘Another important drawback of magnetic position sensors is the strongly non-linear decrease of the magnetic field strength with distance from the field source, unless a very big and costly structure is implemented. For a simple small ‘magnet the field decreases with 1/r? with the distance. Here again the raw output signal must be linearized by data processing. In this paper we present an elegant solution, which allows to virtually eliminate all above drawbacks, namely (0-7803-7454-1/02/517,00 ©2002 IEEE on Radivoje S. Popovic ‘Swiss Federal Institute of Technology EPFL Lausanne, Switzerland ridivoje popovie@epflch Fredy Betschart Sentron AG. Zug, Switzerland firedi@sentron.ch temperature drift, ageing effects and non-linearity at the same time, without adding new ones. Essentially, the good properties of our sensor are due to the fact that we measure the rotation of the field of a small magnet and not the field strength as all known Hall position sensors do, MEASUREMENT PRINCIPLE ‘The concept of the present magnetic position sensor, which js based on our recent patent application [1], is shown in Figure 1. The sensor consists of two parts: (1) a eylindrical permanent magnet, and (2) a Hall sensor assembly, consisting ofa pair oftwo-axes Hall magnetic sensors fixed ‘on a common substrate, The two parts can translatory move with respect to each other, along the three mutually perpendicular axes x, y, z, We assume thatthe substrate is parallel with a (x, y) plane. The permanent magnet is ‘magnetized along its rotational axis, which is positioned perpendicularly with respect to the substrate. fuxlines 1 permanent Hall sensor Figure 4: The principle of the new position sensor. If ‘the magnet moves in the plane perpendicular to its (vertical) axis, the (horizontal) in-plane components of ‘the magnetic fleld seen by the two Hall elements (Bs, B,) rotate,Figure 2: Top view of the structure shown in Figure 1. ‘The directions of the magnetic field vectors (B1, 8:) seen by the two Hall elements change only ifthe projection of the magnet moves in the drawing plane. ‘When the magnet moves in a plane (x, y), the components of the magnetic field parallel with the (x, 9) plane, seen by the two Hall elements (B,, B;), rotate; but if the magnet moves along its axis (2), this is not the case, see Figure 2: then the two magnetic field vectors By and B, change their strengths, but not the orientations. This is because the cylindrical magnet produces a radial magnetic field in any (x, y) plane. This stays so in spite of eventual changes of the strength of the magnetic field due to temperature oF ageing effects. ‘We used the two-axis vertical Hall elements deseribed in [2]. Two such sensors are placed at a distance 4 from each ‘ther, Figure 2. They measure the in-plane components of the tWo magnetic field vectors By and Bz, which are Bs, By,, By, and By>. The corresponding Hall output voltages are Vai, Vor, Vio, and Poo. The sensors are very linear in the used magnetic field range, so that () Fai=SBx1, Yor=8 By and so on, where Sis the sensor sensitivity, $7. From the similarity ofthe corresponding triangles in Figure 2 we deduce the following: @ 912 On the other hand, Bet Br We cleulat frm th above equation th vo distances of Inert as lows Eo = tanjan) ¥, ° fo 22 = tana2) tan(a) Tan(a)+tanfa2)" a tan(o) = tan(a2) Here tan(al) and tan(a2) are obtained by caleulating the ratio of the two Hall voltages of each sensor, Eq. (3). These values are independent of the absolute field strength and also of temperature effects and ageing as long as these effects are similar for both sensor axes ‘This concept allows measuring a position with two degrees of freedom wit the great advantage of virtual immunity on the sensor and magnet tolerances as well on the temperature and aging effects. Moreover, the measurement result is theoretically independent on the mutual distance between the magnet and the Hall sensors along the third axis (2) EXPERIMENTAL SETUP For the experimental setup we used two-axis Hall sensors 2D-VH-I1 of SENTRON AG [3]. The angular error between the two sensor axes is smaller than 0.1°, ® ‘Two such sensors were mounted on a ceramic substrate at a distance of A=2mm, A. samarium-cobalt cylindrical permanent magnet with a diameter of 6mm and a length of 2.5mm was placed at Y=3mm from a line through the sensors and at2-0.5 mm above ther, ‘The Hall elements are biased with the constant voltage of SV. Except of eanceling offset voltages, no adjustments or calibrations were made. The Hall output voliages are amplified using conventional integrated differential amplifiers and then converted into digital signals. The irectional tangent functions, Eq. (3), and the magnet position co-ordinates, Eq. (4), are calculated using a ‘microprocessor. ‘The position sensor was mounted on precise micrometric translation stages (see Figure 3). All measurements were performed at room temperature, without any temperature stabilization measures, EXPERIMENTAL RESULTS ‘The graph in Figure 4 shows the measured output signals of ‘one ofthe Hall sensors fora translation of the magnet along the x-axis. As expected, the two Hall output signals are sine and cosine-like, which demonstrates the rotation of the ‘measured magnetic field vector. Figure 4 also shows the thereof calculated position signal (Vx/Vy), which is directly proportional tothe distance X.See ge Display with distance in X-and Figure 3: Photograph of the measurement and test setup. The magnetic position sensor Is tested with reference 10 fows to place the sensor with high precision on x, y andz ‘coordinates with an error of less than 2um. precise micrometri translation stages. The test setu Figure 4: Measured sensor output voltages Vx and Vy ‘of one two-axis Hall sensor and calculated position ‘signal VeWVy for a displacement from 3mm to +3mm in Xedirection. 913 We shall now test the equation (4) of the position sensor system, For a displacement along any one of the three axes x, y and z at a time and by keeping the other wo coordinates. constant, we should once receive a signal proportional to X, once proportional to Y and then it should bbe constant if we move along z. To investigate the ‘obtainable accuracy of the sensor, we then plot for each of | ‘he three measurements the difference between the ‘measured position and the mechanical reference position in Figure $ shows the calculated X and Y position for a displacement of 42mm around 2et0 on the x-axis, We notice that the measured X valuc is very linear with the position and thatthe measured Y value is nearly constant.Movementin X-tection (Y= 30000, 2 500um) MovemontinY-lroetion (C= Oum, | a | y = | lf IS ! Fe | i | [t= | | wf aaa | 2 > oa | | oo cena p Fl | | Figure Peon signals X ad ¥ clus om the Hall sensor voltages for travel along x- In figure 6 we give the calculated remaining error between the measured values and the reference position of the translation stages. The error on X is less than 10um (0.5% full scale) and on Y about 4Oum (2% full scale). However, tests with other magnet samples have shown that these errors arise from non-uniformity inthe permanent magnetic ‘material and not from the sensor inaccuracy. enrol res fr nvenentn econ etd Stay | Figure 6: Position error between Hall sensor ‘measurement and mechanical reference for travel along axis In the next, step we investigate the output signals for a movement along y-axis. Figure 7 shows the position data caleulated from the sensor outputs. It can be noticed, similar to the first case, thatthe calculated position for the ‘movement (Y) is very linear, whereas the other value (X) is nearly constant. o14 Hall sensor voltages for travel long y-axis ‘When we now again plot the errors between measured and ‘mechanical position (figure 8), we can see, that the accuracy of the measured X position is about +/-Sum (+/- (0.5%) and for Y about +/-10um (+/-1%6) in the range from 13mm, For larger distances both errors increase due to the strongly decreasing field, causing the Hall voltages to become very small The experimental setup is optimized for a Y-position of 2,.3 mm and shows up to Y = 3.8 mm an accuracy of 1% for displacement along x. (= Oum.2= 00m) | icetemica! Figure 8: Position error betwoen Hall sensor measurement and mechanical reference for travel along yeas ‘The last case to investigate is wether the position sensor is really insensitive to a movement of the magnet along its axis (2) of not, Figure 9 shows that for this ease indeed the output signals x-position and y-position stay virally constant,Moverentin Zalrecton (Y= 3000um, X= Our) Hall sensor voltages for travel along z-axis. For the z-position range, fom z~ 0.5.2mm, we find an x- (Qum, which corresponds to 40.5% of ‘/-Immand a y-position error of = lOum, which also corresponds to +-0.5% of +/-Imm (Figure 10) Here again, it can be observed that the amplitude of the sensor signals and so the signal quality decreases fast with increasing Z-distance. 7 Measurement errs for movement in Zdrecton eobu X= bum) ire 10: Position error between Hall sensor measurement and mechanical reference for travel along ‘axis 915 From these measurements we conclude that indeed, according to our expectations, we can measure accurately ‘and independently x and y position of a small rotation symmetric magnet using our position sensor. The distance between the magnet and the sensor plane has virtually no influence on the position measurement as long as it does not exceed a value where the field emanating from the ‘magnet becomes very smal CONCLUSION AND OUTLOOK With the combination of two 2-axis Hall sensors and 2 single axially magnetized eylindrical magnet we can measure position in a plane. The measurement result is Virtually immune on the sensor and magnet tolerances From this fact we infer that the measurement result is also ‘immune on temperature and ageing effects. Our demonstrator measures linear position with a linearity of better than 1% and resolution of about 2um in the position range of > ¥/-Imm, ‘The accuracy ofthe presented position sensor is limited by the following factors: a rapid decrease in the magnetic field with an increase in distance; imegular magnetization; inaccuracy in the mutual position of the two 2-Axis-Hall sensors; and offset and noise ‘The absolute accuracy can be increased by calibration. To this end, we may simply use a look-up table in a micro controller. By doing so, the accuracy will be limited by the system noise and offset instability. To increase the mutual alignment and the precision of the distance A between the two two-axis Hall sensors, they can ‘both be integrated on the same silicon chip. This becomes possible withthe technology of our new integrated CMOS Hall angular position sensor [4] REFERENCES [1] European Patent Application No 01810298.8-1236 [2] R. S. Popovic, “Non-plate-ike Hall magnetic sensors and their applications”, Sensors and Actuators ABS (2000), 9-17, For details on commercially available two-axcs Hall elements, se: www.sentron.ch, RS. Popovie, C. Schott, PM. Dljaca, R. Racz, “A new CMOS Hall angular position sensor”, Technisches ‘Messen, tm Vol 6, June 2001, Pages. 286.291 8) ia]