Texas Advanced Optoelectronic Solutions (Plano, Tx) and Microchip Technology (Chandler, Ariz.) have joined forces to develop an absolute rotary angular position encoder that can be used to derive speed, position and direction.

The device combines TAOS’ TSL1401R, a 128 pixel, 400 dpi linear sensor array, and Microchip’s POIC16F819 microcontroller. The 5 MIPS processor is capable of performing more than 100 scans per second, the firms say, and built-in capture/compare logic enables short, accurate infrared pulses without software timing loops.