A Linear Compensation Method for Improving the Accuracy of an Absolute Multipolar Magnetic Encoder

This paper proposes a linear compensator algorithm to improve the performance of an absolute multipolar magnetic encoder (AMPME). An AMPME is an absolute magnetic rotary encoder that uses a multipolar magnet (MPM) to increase the resolution. The resolution can be dramatically increased in proportion to the number of poles in the MPM. However, various hardware problems that occur during the encoder manufacturing process degrade the AMPME performance. Also, harmonic components occur in the raw data due to various problems, such as the resistance error of the analog circuit, magnetic field overlap between the magnets, position error between the sensor and magnet, and pole-pitch difference. In particular, during the magnetization process of the MPM, the pole-pitch difference becomes a problem when the sizes of each pole are not uniform. This problem causes harmonic components that reduce the absolute position accuracy. To solve these problems, this paper proposes a linear compensation method. The proposed linear compensator consists of two parts. The first part is the enhanced ratiometric linearization for phase calculation and calibration. The second is the phase compensator for removing the phase difference via the pole-pitch difference of the MPM. The linear compensator improves various parameters by precomputing the offset, amplitude, and phase corrections. After compensating for sinusoidal signals, the linear compensator applies appropriate parameters at the appropriate times. This method is faster, easier to set up, and more accurate than the conventional method. Furthermore, this method is experimentally verified against the existing harmonic rejection method. Experimental results are provided to verify the effectiveness of the proposed method.