The paper considers the solution of an urgent scientific and technical problem of developing a tilt angle sensor designed for automated position measurement of optical and optoelectronic systems. The principle of operation of the tilt angle sensor or inclinometer is to measure the direction of acceleration of gravity in the coordinate system associated with the target object, which allows calculating the angles of deviation of the vertical axis of the object from the ideal position. Capacitive sensors measure the angle of inclination by monitoring changes in capacitance due to external influences and often have a fairly simple design. In this paper, we consider a sensor design that uses a metal ball moving in a dielectric tube with electrodes attached to it. To investigate the possibilities of optimizing the device, a mock-up was developed on which the change in capacitance was analyzed depending on the size of the ball, the diameter of the tube and the shape of the electrodes. An important goal of this study was to determine the optimal diameter of the ball inside the dielectric tube to obtain the most noticeable changes in capacitance. The best results were obtained using a metal ball with a diameter slightly smaller than that of a dielectric tube. To measure the capacitance the "capacity–frequency" conversion can be used, followed by measuring the latter using a microcontroller. The resulting capacitance values are very small, which leads to a significant impact of any connecting wires and requires reducing the distance between the primary converter and the signal processing circuit, which can be achieved using micromechanics and microelectromechanics technologies and integrating the entire sensor design into one miniature housing. At the same time, with a decrease in the size of the elements of the primary converter, the value of the detected capacitance will obviously decrease, which will significantly complicate its conversion into an electrical signal.

Keywords: tilt angle, electronic sensor, inclinometer, position control, capacity change, primary converter, auto generator, miniaturization