Amplidyne

An amplidyne is an electromechanical amplifier invented prior to 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.

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 at a constant speed, and the signal to be amplified is applied to the generator's field winding. The higher the current applied to the winding, the stronger the magnetic field and thus the higher the output voltage of the generator. So the output voltage of the generator is an amplified copy of the current waveform applied to the field winding. 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, it cannot even handle audio frequencies, so its use is limited to amplifying low frequency control signals in industrial processes.

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