High-resolution MEMS inertial sensor combining large-displacement buckling behaviour with integrated capacitive readout

Commercially available gravimeters and seismometers can be used for measuring Earth’s acceleration at resolution levels in the order of ng∕Hz (where g represents earth’s gravity) but they are typically high-cost and bulky. In this work the design of a bulk micromachined MEMS device exploiting non-linear buckling behaviour is described, aiming...

Self-Aligning and Self-Calibrating Capacitive Sensor System for Displacement Measurement in Inaccessible Industrial Environments

High-precision positioning often requires high speed and high resolution displacement measurements in order to compensate for the small vibrations of critical components. The displacement sensor must be precise and stable over a long period of time to avoid expensive recalibration. This requires tight mounting tolerances, which are especially...

A 117DB in-Band CMRR 98.5DB SNR Capacitance-to-Digital Converter for Sub-NM Displacement Sensing with an Electrically Floating Target

This paper describes a high-performance Capacitance-to-Digital Converter (CDC) for sub-nm displacement sensing with an electrically floating target. Intended to be integrated into a displacement sensor probe, the CDC consumes only 560μW. It achieves 98.5dB SNR in a 1ms conversion time, which is 34 times more energy-efficient than the prior...

A 19.8-mW Eddy-Current Displacement Sensor Interface with Sub-Nanometer Resolution

This paper presents an eddy-current sensor (ECS) interface intended for sub-nanometer (sub-nm) displacement sensing in hi-tech applications. The interface employs a 126-MHz excitation frequency to mitigate the skin effect, and achieve high resolution and stability. An efficient on-chip sensor offset compensation scheme is introduced which...

Humidity Sensitivity and Coil Design of a High-Precision Eddy-Current Displacement Sensor

Unlike capacitive displacement sensors, Eddy-Current Displacement Sensors (ECDSs) possess an inherently low sensitivity to environmental conditions, such as the humidity of the ambient air. By elevating the excitation frequency it is possible to mitigate their major limitations regarding stability and resolution, making them of interest for high...

A Power-Efficient Readout for Wheatstone-Bridge Sensors With COTS Components

This paper presents a direct digital converter for Wheatstone bridge sensors, which is realized with commercial off-the-shelf components. The power efficiency of the readout is enhanced by embedding the bridge sensor in a second-order continuous-time sigma-delta modulator (CTDeltaSigmaM). By directly digitizing the output signal of a Wheatstone...

Shape fitting: Application to the estimation of wafer chuck deformation

In wafer scanners - the machines that define the details of electronic chips - there is a need for highly accurate deformation measurements of the machine components during the chip manufacturing process.<br/>This thesis develops an estimation methodology, based on shape fitting principles, that aims at a low estimation error and addresses the...

Suppression Efficiency of the Correlated Noise and Drift of Self-oscillating Pseudo-differential Eddy Current Displacement Sensor

The suppression efficiency of the correlated noise and drift of self-oscillating front-end circuit in a pseudo-differential eddy-current displacement sensor (ECDS) is investigated using COMSOL and MATLAB. The transfer characteristic of the sensor coil, excited at 200 MHz, is obtained through a FE model in COMSOL. The characteristic is linearized...

Vacuum packed particles as flexible endoscope guides with controllable rigidity

In order to fully benefit from the functionalities of flexible endoscopes in surgery a simple shaft-guide that can be used to support the flexible endoscope shaft is required. Such a shaft-guide must be flexible during insertion into the human body and rigidified when properly positioned to support the flexible endoscope shaft. A shaft-guide...