Digital servo inclinometers

Sherborne Sensors has announced the global market debut of the DSIC series, a range of robust, high precision single and dual axis digital servo inclinometers.

The series is said to offer RS485 ASCII digital output and built in active temperature compensation, with a total error band of 0.08° from true input angle, at any temperature and any angle, for high precision tilt measurements over an operating temperature range of -20 to 70°C. Available in ranges of +/-15 to +/-60° and rugged to 1500g mechanical shock, the DSIC series incorporates a servo inclinometer element and 19bit analogue to digital conversion capabilities to sense inclination to a high degree of accuracy with near zero hysteresis and better than 0.001° resolution. According to Sherborne, units incorporate dynamic filtering to eliminate unwanted vibration and noise, also facilitating fast response times. During factory calibration, each DSIC series inclinometer is programmed with individual output characteristics over temperature, to optimise unit accuracy. Output bandwidth ranges are configurable to 20Hz, with options for custom connectors and electrical filters. A low-pass filter with a -3dB cut-off frequency at 20Hz is designed to ensure a -40dB per decade attenuation. The dynamic filter also accommodates lower cut-off frequencies for vibration rejection, without sacrificing step-response time. A window comparator monitors differences between filter input and output. When the difference exceeds a pre-set threshold, the filter increases its slew rate by setting filter output equal to input. Default setting of this threshold is 0.1% of full range output, user configurable to suit the application. The internal sampling rate is 4.8kHz. The default measurement update rate is 10Hz, but may also be user configured. The series is suitable for use in applications such as gun fire control systems, platform leveling; antenna control systems, geophysical systems, level control and calibration systems, or anywhere precision angular measurements are required over a wide temperature range.