Effects of the Target on the Performance of an Ultra-Low Power Eddy Current Displacement Sensor for Industrial Applications

The demand for smart, low-power, and low-cost sensors is rapidly increasing with the proliferation of industry automation. In this context, an Ultra-Low Power Eddy Current Displacement Sensor (ULP-ECDS) targeting common industrial applications and designed to be embedded in wireless Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) devices is presented. A complete characterization of the realized ULP-ECDS operating with different metallic targets was carried out. The choice of the considered targets in terms of material and thickness was inspired by typical industrial scenarios. The experimental results show that the realized prototype works properly with extremely low supply voltages, allowing for obtaining an ultra-low power consumption, significantly lower than other state-of-the-art solutions. In particular, the proposed sensor reached the best resolution of 2 µm in case of a carbon steel target when operated with a supply voltage of 200 mV and with a power consumption of 150 µW. By accepting a resolution of 12 µm, it is possible to further reduce the power consumption of the sensor to less than 10 µW. The obtained results also demonstrate how the performances of the sensor are strongly dependent on both the target and the demodulation technique used to extract the displacement information. This allowed for defining some practical guidelines that can help the design of effective solutions considering application-specific constraints.