An optical rotary encoder is easy to implement for automatic control applications. In particular, the output of the encoder has a digital form pulse, which is also easy to be connected to a popular digital controller. By using the encoder, there are various angular velocity detecting methods, M-, T-, and M/T-method. Each of them has a property of its own. They have common limitation that the angular velocity detection period is strongly subject to the destination velocity magnitude in case of ultimate low range. They have ultimate long detection period or cannot even detect angular velocity at near zero velocity. This paper proposes a dual encoder system with two encoders of normal resolution. The dual encoder system is able to keep detection period moderately at near zero velocity and even detects zero velocity within nominal period. It is useful for detecting velocity in case of changing rotational direction at which there occurs zero velocity. In this paper, various experimental results are shown for the dual encoder system validity.
