• Transactions of the Korean Society of Mechanical Engineers B
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• v.35 no.11
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• pp.1147-1156
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• 2011

A contact-type area-varying capacitive displacement sensor, or CLECDiS, can measure displacements over millimeter ranges with nanometer resolution. However, a small changes in the contact condition due to the surface profile or friction, which are inherent characteristics of contact-type sensors, lead to significant distortion of the output signal. Therefore, ensuring reliable contact conditions during CLECDiS measurements is the most important area to be improved in their actual use. Herein, in order to design an instrument for ensuring reliable contact conditions, the contact condition is analyzed by characterizing the signal distortion, observing the pressure distribution between the contacting surfaces, and measuring the motional errors of the sensor using a laser Doppler vibrometer (LDV). The manufactured instrument enables a CLECDiS to be used in an ultraprecise positioning system with improved reliability.

• Journal of Sensor Science and Technology
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• v.21 no.6
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• pp.440-445
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• 2012

Contact-type Linear Encoder-like Capacitive Displacement Sensor (CLECDiS) is a novel displacement sensor which has wide measurable range with high resolution. The sensor, however, is very sensitive to relative rotational alignment between stator and mover of the sensor as well as its displacement. In addition to, there can be some disturbances in the relative rotational alignment, so some noises occur in the sensor's output signal by the disturbances. This negative effect of the high sensitivity may become larger as increasing sensitivity. Therefore, this negative effect of the high sensitivity has to be compensated and reduced to achieve nanometer resolution of the sensor. In this study, a new type capacitive linear encoder with a mechanical guide is presented to reduce the relative rotational alignment problem. The presented method is not only to reduce the alignment problem, but also to assemble the sensor to the stage conveniently. The method is based on a new type CLECDiS that has mechanical guide autonomously. In the presented sensor, when the device is fabricated by micro-machining, the guide-rail is also fabricated on the surface of the sensor. By the direct fabrication of the guide-rail with high precision micro-machining, errors of the guide-rail can be reduced significantly. In addition, a manual yaw alignment is not required to obtain large magnitude of the output signal after the assembly of the sensor and the stage. The sensor movement is going to follow the guide-rail automatically. The prototype sensor was fabricated using the presented method, and we verify the feasibility experimentally.

• Proceedings of the KSME Conference
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• 2007.05a
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• pp.1450-1454
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• 2007

A Contact-type Linear Encoder-like Capacitive Displacement Sensor (CLECDiS) has been developed to measure displacements at high accuracy within a long measurement range. In this paper, we have worked on improving the performance and reliability of the sensor. The performance increase can be done by introducing the smaller electrode patterns of $4{\mu}m$ width. In order to improve the reliability of the sensor we have changed the electrode layers from chrome-gold to chrome-gold-chrome and re-design its supporting structure. The newly-designed sensor is fabricated and tested to show that its sensitivity is $35pF/{\mu}m$, which implies that its resolution may be 0.36nm if SNR (Signal-to-Noise-Ratio) is 80.1dB. It is about ten times of that $(3.14pF/{\mu}m)$ of its previous version with 10${\mu}m$ electrodes. The total measurement range remains the same as the previous one; 15mm. The calibration experiments show its improved performance and reliability.