Magnetic Sensors
Press Room

Honeywell Introduces New Rotary Position Sensor

MINNEAPOLIS, April 27, 1999 -- Honeywell today introduced the HMC1512, a high resolution, low power magnetoresisive sensor capable of measuring the angle direction of a magnetic field from a magnet with a wide angular range of ±90° and <0.07 degree resolution. This Rotary Position Sensor is especially designed for threshold detection, angular speed and angular position sensing applications.

A new addition to Honeywell's family of magnetic sensors, the HMC1512 measures field direction rather than field strength. The advantages of this approach include the ability to withstand large variations in the gap between the sensor and the magnet, insensitivity to the tempco of the magnet, and less sensitivity to shock and vibration. Other advantages of this solid state, non contact sensor include no moving parts to wear out and no dropped signals from worn tracks as in conventional contact-based rotary sensors.

Unlike Hall effect devices, which may require samarium cobalt or similar "rare earth" magnets, the HMC1512 can function with lower cost Alnico or ceramic type magnets. The Rotary Position Sensor may be operated on three volts with bandwidth response of 0-5 MHz, two outputs each typical Wheatstone bridge. The HMC1512 always knows its' exact position and requires no indexing for proper positional output. It is available in a small, eight-pin surface mount package.

The HMC1512 is manufactured at the Honeywell Solid State Electronics Center (SSEC) located in Plymouth, Minnesota. SSEC is a leading supplier of precision pressure and magnetic transducers, which are based on Honeywell's superior magnetics technology. The Honeywell family of magnetic sensors has current applications in compassing, navigation systems, attitude reference, virtual reality, traffic detection, proximity detection and medical devices. For additional details about the HMC1512, please call the SSEC Information Line toll free at 1-800-323-8295.

Honeywell is the world's leading provider of control technologies for buildings, homes, industry, space and aviation. The company employs 57,000 people in 95 countries, and had 1998 sales of $8.4 billion.