METHOD AND APPARATUS FOR DETERMINING ROTATIONAL SPEED

摘要

A method and apparatus are disclosed for providing improved rotational speed determination for a rotating shaft. Two probes positioned adjacent a circular disk which rotates with the shaft scan markings on the disk and generate four out-of-phase signals in response to rotation of the shaft. A switch, controlled by logic circuitry which detects intersections of the signals, develops a composite saw-tooth-shaped signal from the four signals. A counter counts the number of crossings of the composite signal with a reference "zero" value to develop a determination of the number of discrete angular positions traversed by the shaft during a specified time interval. A memory stores the value of the composite signal at the start of the time interval. Computation circuitry develops a rotational speed based on the counted number of positions, corrected by a factor derived from the difference between the stored value and the value of the composite signal at the end of the interval. Time control circuitry prevents the start or end of the time interval during switching and prevents switching during the start or end of the time interval.