A Compact and High-Performance Eddy-Current Sensor Based on Meander-Spiral Coil

In this paper, a novel meander–spiral coil (MSC) was designed as an eddy-current sensor (ECS) probe, which has small sensing area and spot size, nearly no limitation of mounting space, and can perform better than the regular-spiral coil (RSC). The results of the finite-element analysis show that the MSC has a magnetic active area that was only a quarter of that of the RSC. The MSC has much smaller inductance and resistance than the RSC, though the former has high sensitivity similar to the latter. These types of spiral coils were manufactured by printed circuit board technology and tested, which proves that the MSC has a small sensing range. Owing to MSC’s small magnetic active area and high performance, this type of spiral coil is suitable for applications in sensor arrays and micro-electromechanical systems. Furthermore, using the MSC, ECSs have the potential to be used for micro-gap measurement, accelerometers, and pressure measurement applications, as in the case of capacitive sensors. Moreover, ECSs are inherently immune to environmental contaminations.