COLLOCATED SENSOR ACTUATOR

摘要

A position sensor is structurally integrated within a wide-gap magnetic actuator. Being an integral structure, the sensor provides voltages representative of a relative shift in position of the actuator's armature and pole piece from the neutral or base position and represents the actual position between pole piece and armature. Suitably the position sensor includes a photosensitive surface in the shape of a circular disk (17) that is attached to the actuator's paddle (9) and a narrow beam light source (15) which is attached to the actuator's pole piece and oriented to produce a small spot of light on the photosensitive surface.