Circuit Note

CN-0288
Devices Connected/Referenced

AD598 LVDT Signal Conditioner

Circuits from the Lab® reference designs are engineered and
tested for quick and easy system integration to help solve today’s Precision, 20 MHz, CMOS, Single RRIO
analog, mixed-signal, and RF design challenges. For more AD8615
Operational Amplifier
information and/or support, visit www.analog.com/CN0288.
2-Channel, 12-Bit ADC with I2C Compatible
AD7992
Interface in 10-lead MSOP

LVDT Signal Conditioning Circuit

EVALUATION AND DESIGN SUPPORT This circuit uses the AD598 LVDT signal conditioner that contains
Circuit Evaluation Boards a sine wave oscillator and a power amplifier to generate the
CN-0288 Circuit Evaluation Board (EVAL-CN0288-SDPZ) excitation signals that drive the primary side of the LVDT. The
System Demonstration Platform (EVAL-SDP-CB1Z) AD598 also converts the secondary output into a dc voltage. The
Design and Integration Files AD8615 rail-to-rail amplifier buffers the output of the AD598 and
Schematics, Layout Files, Bill of Materials drives a low power 12-bit successive approximation analog-to-
digital converter (ADC). The system has a dynamic range of 82 dB
CIRCUIT FUNCTION AND BENEFITS and a system bandwidth of 250 Hz, making it ideal for precision
The circuit shown in Figure 1 is a complete adjustment-free linear industrial position and gauging applications.
variable differential transformer (LVDT) signal conditioning The signal conditioning circuitry of the system consumes only
circuit. This circuit can accurately measure linear displacement 15 mA of current from the ±15 V supply and 3 mA from the +5 V
(position). supply, making this ideal for remote applications. The circuit can
The LVDT is a highly reliable sensor because the magnetic core operate a remote LVDT from up to 300 feet away, and the output
can move without friction and does not touch the inside of the can drive up to 1000 feet.
tube. Therefore, LVDTs are suitable for flight control feedback This circuit note discusses basic LVDT theory of operation and the
systems, position feedback in servomechanisms, automated design steps used to optimize the circuit shown in Figure 1 for a
measurement in machine tools, and many other industrial and chosen bandwidth, including noise analysis and component
scientific electromechanical applications where long term reliability selection considerations.
is important.
+15V
EXCITATION (CARRIER)

3 2 20
VA
11 +5V
AMP OSC

+5V
17 AD598
SDA
33Ω
VOUT VIN1 AD7992 SCL
A–B 3kΩ
VB FILTER AMP 16 AD8615 ALERT
10 A+B 2.7nF
0.01µF
1
E-100
11426-001

ECONOMY SERIES LVDT

–15V

Figure 1. LVDT Signal Conditioning Circuit (Simplified Schematic: All Connections and Decoupling Not Shown)

Rev. A
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CN-0288 Circuit Note
CIRCUIT DESCRIPTION The ratiometric principle upon which the AD598 operates
Theory of Operation requires that the sum of the LVDT secondary voltages remains
constant with LVDT stroke length. Although LVDT manufacturers
An LVDT is an absolute displacement transducer that converts
generally do not specify the relationship between VA + VB and
a linear displacement or position from a mechanical reference
stroke length, it is recognized that some LVDTs do not meet this
(or zero) into a proportional electrical signal containing phase
requirement. In these cases, a nonlinearity results. However, the
(for direction) and amplitude information (for distance). The
majority of available LVDTs do in fact meet these requirements.
LVDT operation does not require electrical contact between the
moving part (probe or core rod assembly) and the transformer. Component Selection
Instead, it relies on electromagnetic coupling. For this reason, The design procedure for the dual supply operation (±15 V)
and because they operate without any built-in electronic circuitry, found in the AD598 data sheet was followed to set the excitation
LVDTs are widely used in applications where long life and high frequency to 2.5 kHz, system bandwidth to 250 Hz, and an
reliability under severe environments are a required, such output voltage from 0 V to 5 V.
military and aerospace applications. It is normal for the AD598 internal oscillator to produce a small
For this circuit, the E-100 Economy Series LVDT sensor from amount of ripple that feeds through to the output. A passive
Measurement Specialties™, Inc. was used with the AD598. With low-pass filter is used to reduce this ripple to the required level.
a linearity of ±0.5% of full range, the E Series is suitable for When selecting capacitor values to set the bandwidth of the system,
most applications with moderate operation temperature a trade-off is involved. Choosing smaller capacitors give higher
environments. system bandwidth but increase the amount of output voltage
The AD598 is a complete, LVDT signal conditioning subsystem. ripple. The ripple can be reduced by increasing the shunt
It converts the transducer mechanical position of LVDTs to a capacitance across the feedback resistor used to set the output
unipolar dc voltage with a high degree of accuracy and voltage level; however, this also increases phase lag.
repeatability. All circuit functions are included on the chip. The AD8615 operational amplifier buffers the output of the
With the addition of a few external passives components to AD598, which ensures that the AD7992 ADC is driven by a low
set frequency and gain, the AD598 converts the raw LVDT impedance source (high source impedances significantly affect
secondary output to a scaled dc signal. the ac performance of the ADC).
The AD598 contains a low distortion sine wave oscillator to The low-pass filter between the output of the AD598 and the
drive the LVDT primary. The frequency of the sine wave is input of the AD8615 serves two purposes:
determined by a single capacitor and can range from 20 Hz to
20 kHz with amplitudes from 2 V rms to 20 V rms. • It limits the input current to the AD8615
• It filters the output voltage ripple.
The LVDT secondary output consists of two sine waves that drive
the AD598 directly. The AD598 operates upon the two signals, The AD8615 has internal protective circuitry that allows voltages
dividing their difference by their sum and producing a scaled exceeding the supply to be applied at the input. This is important
unipolar dc output. Previous LVDT conditioners synchronously because the output voltage of the AD598 can swing ±11 V with
detect this amplitude difference and convert its absolute value to ±15 V supplies. As long as the input current is limited to less
a voltage proportional to position. This technique uses the primary than 5 mA, higher voltages can be applied to the input. This is
excitation voltage as a phase reference to determine the polarity primarily due to the extremely low input bias current of the
of the output voltage. There are a number of problems associated AD8615 (1 pA) which allows the use of larger resistors. The
with this technique. They include: use of these resistors adds thermal noise, which contributes to
the overall output voltage noise of the amplifier.
• Producing a constant amplitude, constant frequency
excitation signal The AD8615 is an ideal amplifier to buffer and drive the input
• Compensating for LVDT primary to secondary phase shifts of the AD7992 12-bit SAR ADC because of its input overvoltage
• Compensating for these shifts as a function of temperature protection, and its ability to swing rail-to-rail at both the input
and frequency and output.

The AD598 eliminates all of these problems. The AD598 does

not require a constant amplitude because it works on the ratio
of the difference and sum of the LVDT output signals. A constant
frequency signal is not necessary because the inputs are rectified
and only the sine wave carrier magnitude is processed. There is
no sensitivity to phase shift between the primary and the LVDT
outputs because synchronous detection is not employed.

Rev. A | Page 2 of 6
Circuit Note CN-0288
Noise Analysis The total output dynamic range of the system can be calculated
With all signal condition components selected, the amount of by dividing the full-scale output signal (5 V) by the total output
resolution needed to convert the signal must be determined. rms noise (0.4 mV rms) and converting it to decibels, yielding
As in most noise analyses, only the key contributors need to be approximately 82 dB.
identified. Noise sources combine in an rss manner; therefore, Dynamic Range = 20 log(5 V/0.4 mV) = 82 dB
any single noise source that is at least three-to-four times larger
The AD7992 is a good candidate for this application because it
than any of the others dominates.
has 12-bit resolution and a sampling rate of 188 kSPS per channel
In the case of the LVDT signal conditioning circuit, the dominant when used with a 3.4 MHz serial clock.
source of the output noise is the output ripple of the AD598.
Test Results
The other sources of noise (resistor noise, input voltage noise,
and output voltage noise of the AD8615) are significantly Using a Measurement Specialties, Inc. E-100 Economy Series
smaller in comparison. LVDT connected to J3 and using a digital oscilloscope to
monitor the output of the AD598 found on J6 on the EVAL-
The output voltage ripple of the AD598 is 0.4 mV rms with a CN0288-SDPZ evaluation board, the actual output ripple found
0.39 µF capacitor value and with a 10 nF shunt capacitor across the was 6.6 mV p-p, as is shown in Figure 3.
feedback resistor shown in Figure 2. Note that these components
and related pin connections are not shown in the simplified
schematic in Figure 1; however, details can be found in the
AD598 data sheet.
1000

100
RIPPLE (mV rms)

10

2.5kHz, CSHUNT = 0nF

11426-003
2.5kHz, CSHUNT = 1nF CH1 2.0mV M2.000µs
1
Figure 3. Output Voltage Ripple Before Low-Pass Filter

2.5kHz, CSHUNT = 10nF The low-pass filter (3 kΩ, 0.01 µF) between the AD598 output
and the AD8615 input has a −3 dB bandwidth of 5.3 kHz and
11426-002

0.1
0.01 0.1 1 10
C2, C3, C4; C2 = C3 = C4 (µF) reduces the ripple to 2 mV p-p.
Figure 2. Output Voltage Ripple vs. Filter Capacitance With the low-pass filter installed between the output stage
The maximum number of rms counts that can be resolved can of the AD598 and the input stage of the AD8615, data was
now be calculated by dividing the full-scale output by the total collected from the EVAL-CN0288-SDPZ evaluation board,
system rms noise. as shown in Figure 4.
Total RMS Counts = 5 V/0.4 mV = 12, 500
The effective resolution is found by taking the base 2 logarithm
of the total rms counts.
Effective Resolution = log2(12,500) = 13.6 Bits
Noise-free code resolution can be obtained by subtracting
2.7 bits from the effective resolution.
Noise-Free Code Resolution = Effective Resolution − 2.7 Bits
= 13.6 Bits − 2.7 Bits
11426-004

= 10.9 Bits
Figure 4. Screenshot of the CN-0288 Evaluation Software

The ripple from the AD598 was attenuated to 2 mV p-p, and the
system was able to achieve 11 bits of noise-free code resolution.
A complete design support package for this circuit note can be
found at http://www.analog.com/CN0288-DesignSupport.

Rev. A | Page 3 of 6
CN-0288 Circuit Note
Applications in Flight Control Surface Position Feedback CIRCUIT EVALUATION AND TEST
Unmanned autonomous vehicles (UAVs), or drones, are playing This circuit uses the EVAL-CN0288-SDPZ circuit board and
an ever-increasing part in the national security of the United the EVAL-SDP-CB1Z SDP-B system demonstration platform
States. These high technology, complex aerial platforms are controller board. The two boards have 120-pin mating connectors,
controlled by a crew miles away and are multimission capable. allowing for the quick setup and evaluation of the performance
They include roles such as aerial reconnaissance, combat of the circuit. The EVAL-CN0288-SDPZ contains the circuit to be
weapons platforms, battlefield theater command and control evaluated, and the EVAL-SDP-CB1Z (SDP-B) is used with the
oversight, or unmanned in-flight refueling station. CN-0288 evaluation software to capture the data from the
The complex systems employed on UAVs use a myriad of EVAL-CN0288-SDPZ.
electronic sensors for precise control and feedback. To control Equipment Needed
the altitude (pitch, roll, and yaw) of the UAV, actuators are used to The following equipment is needed:
exert forces on the flight control surfaces. The precise measurement
of the position of these actuators is crucial in maintaining the • A PC with a USB port and Windows® XP (32 bit),
proper flight of path. Windows Vista®, or Windows 7
• The EVAL-CN0288-SDPZ circuit board
The sensors used to measure actuator position need to meet
• The EVAL-SDP-CB1Z SDP-B controller board
three essential criteria: high accuracy, high reliability, and light
weight. All three of these attributes are found in the LVDTs • The CN-0288 evaluation software
designed by Measurement Specialties, Inc. • The EVAL-CFTL-6V-PWRZ dc power supply or
equivalent 6 V/1 A bench supply
Synchronous Operation of Multiple LVDTs
• Measurement Specialties, Inc., E-100 Economy Series LVDT
In many applications, such as multiple gaging measurement, a (EVAL-CFTL-LVDT)
large number of LVDTs are used in close proximity. If these
LVDTs operate at similar carrier frequencies, stray magnetic Getting Started
coupling can cause beat notes to be generated. The resulting Load the evaluation software by placing the CN-0288 evaluation
beat notes may interfere with the accuracy of measurements software into the CD drive of the PC. Using My Computer, locate
made under these conditions. To avoid this situation, all LVDTs the drive that contains the evaluation software.
operate synchronously. Functional Block Diagram
The EVAL-CN0288-SDPZ evaluation board can be configured See Figure 1 for the circuit block diagram and the EVAL-CN0288-
to have one master oscillator between two LVDTs by populating SDPZ-PADSSchematic.pdf file for the complete circuit schematic.
Jumper JP1, JP2, and JP4 with a shorting jumper and leaving The PDF file can be found in the CN-0288 Design Support
JP3 unpopulated. Each LVDT primary is driven from its own Package.
power amplifier, and, thus, the thermal load is shared between
the AD598s.
COMMON VARIATIONS EVAL-CFTL-6V-PWRZ
6V WALL WART
PC

MEASUREMENT
The components selected were optimized for a maximum 5 V SPECIALTIES, INC.
unipolar output from the AD598; however, other combinations E-100 ECONOMY
SERIES LVDT
can be substituted. EVAL-CFTL-LVDT

Other suitable single-supply amplifiers are the AD8565 and J4

USB
AD8601. These amplifiers are suitable replacements for the 120
PINS
AD8615 because they have input overvoltage protection and the J3 J8 CON A
ability to swing rail-to-rail at both the input and output. If dual-
supply operation is required, the ADA4638-1 or ADA4627-1 is
11426-005

suggested. EVAL-CN0288-SDPZ EVAL-SDP-CB1Z

BOARD SDP-B BOARD
If the AD598 outputs ±10 V bipolar signals, the AD7321 is Figure 5. Test Setup Block Diagram
suggested. The AD7321 is a 2-channel, bipolar input, 12-bit ADC
that can accept true bipolar analog input signals as large as ±10 V.

Rev. A | Page 4 of 6
Circuit Note CN-0288
Setup Figure 6 shows a photo of the EVAL-CN0288-SDPZ connected
Connect the 120-pin connector on the EVAL-CN0288-SDPZ to to the EVAL-SDP-CB1Z. Information regarding the EVAL-
the CON A connector on the EVAL-SDP-CB1Z (SDP-B). Use SDP-CB1Z can be found in the UG-277 User Guide.
nylon hardware to firmly secure the two boards, using the holes Information and details regarding test setup and calibration,
provided at the ends of the 120-pin connectors. With power to and how to use the evaluation software for data capture can be
the supply off, connect a 6 V power supply to the +6 V and GND found in the CN-0288 Software User Guide.
pins on the board. If available, a 6 V wall wart can be connected to
Connectivity for Prototype Development
the barrel connector on the board and used in place of the 6 V
power supply. Connect the USB cable supplied with the EVAL- The EVAL-CN0288-SDPZ is designed to use the EVAL-SDP-
SDP-CB1Z to the USB port on the PC. Do not connect the USB CB1Z; however, any microprocessor can be used to interface
cable to the Mini-USB connector on the EVAL-SDP-CB1Z at to the I2C 2-wire serial interface of the AD7992. In order for
this time. another controller to be used with the EVAL-CN0288-SDPZ,
software must be developed by a third party.
Test
There are existing interposer boards that can be used to interface to
Apply power to the 6 V supply (or wall wart) connected to the
the Altera and Xilinx field programmable gate arrays (FPGAs).
EVAL-CN0288-SDPZ. Launch the evaluation software and The BeMicro SDK board from Altera can be used with the
connect the USB cable from the PC to the Mini-USB connector on BeMicro SDK/SDP interposer using nios drivers. Any Xilinx
the EVAL-SDP-CB1Z.
evaluation board that features the FMC connector can be used
When USB communications are established, the EVAL-SDP- with the FMC-SDP interposer board.
CB1Z can send, receive, and capture parallel data from the The EVAL-CN0288-SDPZ is also compatible with the Digilent,
EVAL-CN0288-SDPZ. Imod interface specification.
A photo of the system is shown in Figure 6.

11426-006

Figure 6. The EVAL-CN0288-SDPZ Board Connected to EVAL-SDP-CB1Z (SDP-B) Board and Measurement Specialties, Inc., E-100 Economy Series LVDT

Rev. A | Page 5 of 6
CN-0288 Circuit Note
LEARN MORE Data Sheets and Evaluation Boards
CN-0288 Design Support Package: CN-0288 Circuit Evaluation Board (EVAL-CN0288-SDPZ)
http://www.analog.com/CN0288-DesignSupport System Demonstration Platform (EVAL-SDP-CB1Z)
SDP-B User Guide AD598 Data Sheet
Ardizzoni, John. A Practical Guide to High-Speed Printed-Circuit- AD7992 Data Sheet
Board Layout. Analog Dialogue 39-09, September 2005.
AD8615 Data Sheet
MT-004 Tutorial, The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly Aspects of
ADP1613 Data Sheet
ADC Input Noise—Is No Noise Good Noise?, Analog Devices.
ADP7104 Data Sheet
MT-031 Tutorial, Grounding Data Converters and Solving the
Mystery of “AGND” and “DGND”, Analog Devices. REVISION HISTORY
MT-035, Op Amp Inputs, Outputs, Single-Supply, and Rail-to- 3/14—Rev. 0 to Rev. A
Rail Issues, Analog Devices. Changes to Synchronous Operation of Multiple LVDTs Section ..... 4
MT-036 Tutorial, Op Amp Output Phase-Reversal and Input
3/13—Revision 0: Initial Version
Over-Voltage Protection, Analog Devices.
MT-068 Tutorial, Difference and Current Sense Amplifiers,
Analog Devices.
MT-101 Tutorial, Decoupling Techniques, Analog Devices.
AN-1106 Application Note, An Improved Topology for Creating
Split Rails from a Single Input Voltage, Analog Devices.
E-100 Economy Series LVDT, Measurement Specialties, Inc.
The LVDT: construction and principle of operation, Technical
Paper, Measurement Specialties, Inc, 1000 Lucas Way,
Hampton, VA 23666.
Subminiature LVDTs Provide Accurate Flight Control Surface
Position Feedback on UAVs, Application Note, Measurement
Specialties, Inc, 1000 Lucas Way, Hampton, VA 23666.

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CN11426-0-3/14(A)

Rev. A | Page 6 of 6