meal, repast(noun) the food served and eaten at one time. meal(noun) any of the occasions for eating food that occur by custom or habit at more or less fixed times. meal(noun) coarsely ground foodstuff; especially seeds of various cereal grasses or pulse.
An encoder is a sensor of mechanical motion that generates digital signals in response to motion. As an electro-mechanical device, an encoder is able to provide motion control system users with information concerning position, velocity and direction. There are two different types of encoders: linear and rotary.
Transducers (such as optical or magnetic encoders) sense position or orientation for use as a reference or active feedback to control position: 1  A rotary encoder converts rotary position to an analog (e.g., analog quadrature) or digital (e.g., digital quadrature, 32-bit parallel, or USB) electronic signal. A linear encoder similarly converts linear position to an electronic signal. Such encoders can be either absolute or incremental. The signal from an absolute encoder gives an unambiguous position within the travel range without requiring knowledge of any previous position.