Patent ID: 8447555

Claim:
A method for increasing availability of a displacement/position measuring system based on a potentiometer with a slider tap in a closed control loop, a controller of which is formed by a microcontroller, the method comprising: supplying the microcontroller with a position of a slider via an analog/digital converter; scanning at least part of a sensor range of the potentiometer on a request by presetting a sequence of manipulated variables; recording an available control loop variable which represents the position value at a sampling rate outside process tasks of the closed control loop; determining a position of a defective slider position of the potentiometer by evaluating the control loop variable by way of an associated manipulated variable; overloading a reference variable of the control loop in a defined manner within a process task such that the defective slider position is avoided during a displacement/position measurement; reaching an intact slider position; at least partially subdividing the sensor range into segments of a known size and, when a defective sensor position is determined, at least that segment in which a defect is present is excluded from control within the process task; and rounding up or down the reference variable as a result of a desired value preset, which would be caused by operation in a range excluded as being defective, in such a manner that the controller operates with a reduced control error at an upper or lower limit value with a distance from an excluded range.