Intellectual angle sensor for antenna systems and its metrological analysis

The design and electron-optical scheme of intelligent opto-electronic sensor of absolute angular position are proposed. The sensor is completed by microconverter for data processing to implement the detection and compensation a number of errors that caused by mechanical nodes of rotating mechanisms. The principle of the operation of proposed angle sensor are based on themethod of determining the absolute angular position using a code disk with one track. Pseudorandom code sequence of track is composed of different widths sectors. The code reading and processing is realised by means of two single-line photo-matrices located at the ends of the chord of the disk. The code sequence is constructed so that any fragment of sectorswhen projected on photo-matrix is unique and occurs only once in passing the code sequence on the disk. To accurately determine the angular position the algorithm of the sub-pixel processing image is used. It allows determine the distance to the edges of the sectorswith resolution ability higher than half of the pixel width, that is equal of 2 micrometer. The resolution ability in the angle determination by sensor is increased to 16 bits. Due to the sensor design features, such as usage of two opto-electronic channels and software implementation of algorithms for processing information from photo-lines, errors caused by mechanical nodes of sensor via disk offset and eccentricity are minimized. Measuring at the proposed scheme also avoids the influence of random displacement sensor axis due to backlash in the bearings. The resolution ability of the designed sensor is 20 arcseconds. Based on simulation results and experimental studies metrological analysis of sensor and evaluation of error sources are given. Intelligent sensor in design and functionality was designing for the usage in control systems in particular in the pointing and tracking the antenna of the space communication systems with a narrow directional diagram.