Displacement detection device

7:

• A displacement detection device to detect displacement of a measurement target in a displacement detection direction, the displacement detection device comprising:
• a scale including magnetic-responsive portions and non-magnetic-responsive portions alternately arranged at a predetermined detection pitch in the displacement detection direction;
• a sensor head including an excitation element to which an excitation signal is applied, and at least four magnetic detection elements to provide output signals corresponding to sine, cosine, minus sine, and minus cosine functions, respectively;
• and
• a signal processor to which the output signals of the magnetic detection elements are input to compute and output relative displacement information of the scale with respect to the sensor head;
• wherein
• the signal processor includes:
• a first differential amplifier to output a first AC signal acquired by synthesizing the cosine function and the minus cosine function;
• a second differential amplifier to output a second AC signal acquired by synthesizing the sine function and the minus sine function;
• and
• a processor to determine, at least when use of the displacement detection device is started, a value substantially indicating a phase displacement amount between the excitation signal and the first and the second AC signals, and to acquire, when detecting the displacement of the measurement target, values of the first AC signal and the second AC signal at a timing based on the determined value, and to perform an arctangent computation using the acquired value of the first AC signal and the acquired value of the second AC signal to output the relative displacement information.

11:

• The displacement detection device according to claim 7, wherein
• at least when the use of the displacement detection device is started, a plurality of identification excitation signals generated by shifting phases in which each of phase shift amounts is different from others from the excitation signal, are applied to the excitation element;
• as each of the plurality of identification excitation signals is applied to the excitation element, the processor is configured or programmed to acquire a value of the first AC signal and a value of the second AC signal at a timing that is constant with respect to an original excitation signal, to acquire an aggregation of deviation degrees of the values of the first AC signal and the second AC signal from zero;
• and
• the processor is configured or programmed to acquire the phase shift amount of the identification excitation signal for which the aggregation is largest among the plurality of the identification excitation signals, and to acquire the value substantially indicating the phase displacement amount based on the phase shift amount acquired by the processor.

12:

• The displacement detection device of claim 7, wherein
• at least when the use of the displacement detection device is started, the processor is configured or programmed to repeatedly acquire a value of the first AC signal and a value of the second AC signal with a sampling period shorter than a period of the signals, and for each of a plurality of sampling timings, the processor is configured or programmed to acquire an aggregation of deviation degrees of the values of the first AC signal and the second AC signal from zero;
• and
• the processor is configured or programmed to acquire the sampling timing at which the aggregation is largest among the plurality of the sampling timings at which the aggregations are acquired, and to acquire the value substantially indicating the phase displacement amount based on the sampling timing acquired by the processor.