Assessment of a low-cost angle-meter based on resistance measurements

In this work, an accurate, low-cost electronic angle-meter is designed, manufactured and metrologically characterized. The idea at the basis of the proposed electronic goniometer is to transduce the mechanical rotation into the variation of an electrical quantity, namely a resistance. Then, such a variation can be easily measured through a low-cost multimeter used as an ohmmeter. The metrological characterization of the prototype demonstrated that the proposed system can achieve an uncertainty as low as 1◦ with costs of an order of magnitude lower than devices currently available on the market. In practical applications, this device can be used for the metrological characterization of heading instrumentation thanks to an isolated rotating plate on which several devices can be placed.