|
Article Excerpt
Although non-contact linear and rotary (angular) position sensors can offer key benefits, such as freedom from wear and ease of interface with microprocessor-based systems, contact position sensors, designed for high-performance and for operation in challenging environments, have proved to be a highly suitable and reliable solution for varied industrial and automotive applications, such as monitoring/controlling plastic injection molding machines, hydraulic and pneumatic drive systems, throttle value position sensing, and pedal position sensing. While non-contact position sensing technologies can clearly benefit a range of applications, there are key industrial as well as automotive applications that can continue to be satisfactorily addressed by contact position sensors that are designed and produced by companies with long-standing expertise in the non-contact position sensing field.
Novotechnik (Osfildern, Germany, ++49-711-449-0)-which has maintained a U.S. facility in Southborough, MA (508-485-2244)(www.novotechnik.com) since 1987, and has an Automotive Division in Livonia, MI (734-591-7476)-has established itself as a venerable, key producer of contact, conductive potentiometric position sensors for industrial and automotive applications. Moreover, the company, founded in 1947, has extended its product portfolio over the years to include non-contact position sensors that are based on such technologies as magnetostrictive, Hall effect, and magnetoresistive sensing technologies, as well as on its patented INDRES(r) inductive-resistive technology.
Novotechnik, which is part of the Siedle Group, purportedly introduced potentiometers into machine engineering in the late 1950s, and was the first European company to develop conductive plastic co-molding techniques. The company offers potentiometric position/linear displacement transducers that employ conductive plastic resistance and collector tracks to provide direct, absolute measurement of displacement or length in control, regulation, measuring, and laboratory applications.
Key applications for Novotechnik's position sensors include plastics manufacturing (e.g., plastic injection molding machines as well as, for example, paper roller positioning), hydraulic and pneumatic drive systems, medical (e.g., measuring angle of rotation on X-ray machines that rotate about the body in order to adjust the head machine either away from or closer to the body, modeling three-dimensional movements/forces in the spinal column for surgical diagnostics), and automotive (e.g., pedal position, throttle valve position, transmission).
In 2003, the company had sales of about $55 million, of which 60% was accounted for by industrial applications and 40% by automotive applications.
Novotechnik's linear position /displacement potentiometers are available in a range of electrical strokes from 10 mm to 4000 mm, with resolution better than 0.01 mm and linearities as low as 0.01%. Operational speeds are typically as high...
|
