A big challenge for all intelligent drives developers is to obtain performant, low cost solutions. The paper presents a method to obtain a high resolution position value from a linear optical position sensor. The structure of this type of position sensor makes it a low cost solution that can be used in AC, DC or step motors configurations. The position is computed from 3 sinusoidal waves provided by the optical sensor. Due to imperfections of the sensor pattern, the angle is read from one of the three signals (Phase3) while the other two phases are used to determine its exact quadrant. Despite the complex algorithm of position computation, the presented solution remains a low cost but high precision one.

Keywords: Intelligent drives, Optical sensors, High resolution position