A Novel Application of the Synchro as a Digital Position Transducer

Available methods for synchro to digital conversion which depend on limiting the synchro shaft rotation angle to ± (π/2) are usually complex. In the approach given the synchro shaft is allowed to turn as many times as needed for the required resolution. A pulse counting approach similar to that of the incremental encoder is used for position determination. The control logic that switches the counter from forward to backward counting is the most important part of the block since it should have the ability to block erroneous pulses resulting from hesitating motion within a shaft revolution. The resulting system is simple and inexpensive and has many applications in digital automation.