Optical rotary encoders are the most widely used way to transform mechanical rotary motion into electrical signals. There are three basic configurations for optical encoders: incremental, absolute, ...

Incremental-rotation or linear encoders are very common, but normally they do not provide a direction signal. This design shows an easy way to detect forward or reverse direction. Incremental encoders ...

Rotary quadrature encoders often are used to command digital potentiometers or digital controllers, and quadrature decoding is typically performed in a programmable device (like an FPGA or ...