High precision position control is essential in the process of parts manufacturing and assembling, where eddy current displacement sensors (ECDSs) are widely used owing to the advantages of non-contact sensing, compact volume, and resistance to harsh conditions. To solve the nonlinear characteristics of the sensors, a high-accuracy calibration method based on linearity adjustment is proposed for ECDSs in this paper, which markedly improves the calibration accuracy and then the measurement accuracy. After matching the displacement value and the output voltage of the sensors, firstly, the sensitivity is adjusted according to the specified output range. Then, the weighted support vector adjustment models with the optimal weight of the zero-scale, mid-scale and full-scale are established respectively to cyclically adjust the linearity of the output characteristic curve. Finally, the final linearity adjustment model is obtained, and both the calibration accuracy and precision are verified by the established calibration system. Experimental results show that the linearity of the output characteristic curve of ECDS adjusted by the calibration method reaches over 99.9%, increasing by 1.9⁻5.0% more than the one of the original. In addition, the measurement accuracy improves from 11⁻25 μ m to 1⁻10 μ m in the range of 6mm, which provides a reliable guarantee for high accuracy displacement measurement.
Keywords: calibration; eddy current displacement sensor; linearity adjustment; weighted support vector machine.