Vibrating beam transducer drive system
First Claim
1. A sensor assembly comprising:
- (a) a vibrating transducer having two mechanically coupled vibrating beams, each of said beams having a separate isolated resonant frequency; and
(b) a drive system for applying different drive signals to said beams so that when said different drive signals are applied, said transducer has a quality factor greater than when the same drive signal is applied to both beams.
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Accused Products
Abstract
A drive system for providing different excitation voltages to the separate beams of a multiple beam vibrating transducer is disclosed. In one embodiment of the invention an amplified voltage at the resonant frequency of a master beam is amplified and applied to a secondary beam, to force the secondary beam to vibrate at the resonant frequency and amplitude of the master beam to force the transducer to resonate at the frequency of the master beam. Since the transducer vibrates at the resonant frequency of one of the beams, the transducer energy losses to the adjacent mounting structure are reduced. This results in a higher transducer quality factor so that frequency shifts in the resonant frequency can be readily measured as changes in the parameter that the transducer is intended to monitor.
32 Citations
15 Claims
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1. A sensor assembly comprising:
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(a) a vibrating transducer having two mechanically coupled vibrating beams, each of said beams having a separate isolated resonant frequency; and (b) a drive system for applying different drive signals to said beams so that when said different drive signals are applied, said transducer has a quality factor greater than when the same drive signal is applied to both beams. - View Dependent Claims (2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15)
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Specification