A Direct-Reading Printed-Circuit Commutator for Analog-to-Digital Data Conversion

A novel direct-readout printed-circuit commutator has been incorporated in the design of a shaft-to-digital converter system for analog-to-digital data conversion. The design avoids the use of supplementary coding or additional translation circuitry required to operate other shaft-to-digital converters. Methods are described for ensuring logical progressions of numerical data despite gearing errors and the analog nature of the input-shaft position. Some applications of the commutator are discussed.