Title
Integrated Circuit Angular Displacement Sensor with On-chip Pinhole Aperture.
Abstract
Sensors that remotely track the displacement of a moving object have a wide range of applications from robotic control to motion capture. In this paper, we introduce a simple, small silicon integrated circuit sensor that tracks the angular displacement of an object tagged with a small light source, such as a light-emitting diode (LED). This sensor uses a new angular transduction mechanism, differential diffusion of photoelectrons generated from the light spot cast by the light tag onto a Si anode, that is described by a simple physics model using pinhole optics and carrier diffusion. Because the light spot is formed by a pinhole aperture integrated on the sensor chip, no external focusing optics are needed, reducing system complexity, size, and weight. Prototype sensors based on this model were fabricated and their basic characteristics are presented. These sensors transduce angular displacement of an LED across orthogonal latitudinal and longitudinal arcs into normalized differential photocathode currents with signal linearly proportional to LED angular position across a +/- 40 degrees field-of-view. These sensors offer potential performance and ease-of-use benefits compared to existing displacement sensor technologies.
Year
DOI
Venue
2020
10.3390/s20061794
SENSORS
Keywords
DocType
Volume
angular sensor,position sensor,displacement sensor,position-sensitive detector,motion tracking
Journal
20
Issue
ISSN
Citations 
6
1424-8220
0
PageRank 
References 
Authors
0.34
0
7
Name
Order
Citations
PageRank
Udumbara Wijesinghe100.34
Akash Neel Dey200.34
Andrew Marshall300.34
William Krenik400.68
Can Duan500.34
Hal Edwards600.68
Mark Lee700.34