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An amplidyne is an electromechanical amplifier invented during World War II by Ernst Alexanderson. It consists of an electric motor driving a DC generator. The signal to be amplified is applied to the generator's field winding, and its output voltage is an amplified copy of the field current. The amplidyne is used in industry in high power servo and control systems, to amplify low power control signals to control powerful electric motors, for example. It is now mostly obsolete. ==How an amplidyne works== An amplidyne is an electric motor which turns a generator on the same shaft. Unlike an ordinary motor-generator, the purpose of an amplidyne is not to generate a steady voltage but to generate a voltage proportional to an input current, to amplify the input. The motor provides the power, turning the generator, and the power output is controlled by changing the field current of the generator. In a typical generator the load brushes are positioned perpendicular to the magnetic field flux. To convert a generator to an amplidyne, what would normally be the load brushes are connected together and the output is taken from another set of brushes that are parallel with the field. The perpendicular brushes are now called the 'quadrature' brushes. This simple change can increase the gain by a factor of 10,000 or more. The amplidyne's frequency response is limited to low frequencies, they cannot even handle audio frequencies, so their use is limited to amplifying low frequency control signals in industrial processes. Historically, amplidynes were one of the first amplifiers to generate very high power (tens of kilowatts), allowing precise feedback control of heavy machinery. Vacuum tubes of reasonable size were unable to deliver enough power to control large motors, but vacuum tube circuits driving the input of an amplidyne could be used to boost small signals up to the power needed to drive large motors. Early (World War II era) gun tracking and radar systems used this approach. Amplidynes are now obsolete technology, replaced by modern power semiconductor electronic devices such as MOSFETs and IGBTs which can produce output power in the kilowatt range. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Amplidyne」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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