INDUCTIVE DISPLACEMENT MEASURING SENSOR AND METHOD FOR OPERATING THE LATTER

• US 20160076912A1
• Filed: 03/19/2013
• Published: 03/17/2016
• Est. Priority Date: 03/19/2013
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Balluff Verwaltungsges mbH
• Original Assignee: Balluff Verwaltungsges mbH
• Inventors: Polik, Zoltan, Kantor, Zoltan
• Granted Patent: US 10,209,097 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: G01D 5/20 by varying inductance, e.g. by a movable armature
• CPC Class Codes: G01D 5/2053 by a movable non-ferromagnetic conductive element
• CPC Class Codes: G06N 3/04 Architecture, e.g. interconnection topology

Abstract

In an inductive displacement measuring sensor for measuring the distance, the spatial orientation, the thickness, the material properties or the like of a target object, which sensor has a transmitter element which emits a pulsed signal and a receiver element for detecting a pulse response caused by the emitted pulsed signal in the target object, provision is made, in particular, for the detected pulse response to be immediately evaluated using an artificial neural network.

Claims

1. :

Inductive displacement measuring sensor for measuring the distance, the spatial orientation, the thickness, the material properties or similar of a target object (2), having a transmitter element (11) which emits a pulsed signal and a receiver element (12) for detecting a pulse response in the target object (2) caused by the emitted pulsed signal, wherein the detected pulse response is evaluated immediately by means of an artificial neural network (42).

2. :

Displacement measuring sensor according to claim 1, wherein the artificial neural network (42) is arranged in a signal evaluation unit (40) which is integrated into a microcontroller (4).

3. :

Displacement measuring sensor according to claim 2, wherein the signal evaluation unit (40) comprises a downsampler (41) to reduce the number of samples.

4. :

Displacement measuring sensor according to claim 2, wherein input data (70) of the artificial neural network (42) is generated by means of data detection with unequal sampling intervals.

5. :

Displacement measuring sensor according to claim 1, wherein the artificial neural network (42) has fewer than ten nodes and fewer than twelve neurons arranged in a hidden layer (210).

6. :

Displacement measuring sensor according to claim 5, wherein the artificial neural network (42) has five nodes and six neurons arranged in the hidden layer (210).

7. :

Displacement measuring sensor according to claim 1, wherein the artificial neural network (42) supplies results which are independent of the material of the target object (2) as well as of the ambient temperature and/or the temperature of the displacement measuring sensor.

8. :

Displacement measuring sensor according to claim 1, wherein the artificial neural network (42) supplies results which are dependent on the material of the target object (2).

9. :

Displacement measuring sensor according to claim 1, wherein the output of the sensor is formed by a linear function of the target object distance.

10. :

Method for operating a displacement measuring sensor (1) according to claim 1, wherein input data (70) of the artificial neural network (42) is evaluated, wherein the output of the sensor is switched into a first state if the result supplied by the artificial neural network (42) exceeds an upper threshold value, and the output of the sensor is switched into a second state if the result supplied by the artificial neural network (42) falls below a lower threshold value.

11. :

Method according to claim 10, wherein the evaluation of the input data (70) occurs by means of a hysteresis comparator or a step function.