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They can be used as a low-cost miniature companion with micro-machined accelerometers to provide heading information for inertial navigation purposes, including automotives.
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Background: Vibrating gyroscopes are instruments for measuring the angular velocity of a system with respect to an inertial reference frame. While conventional (rotating-wheel, precision fiber-optic and ring-laser gyroscopes) are too expensive/large for use in most applications, MEMS technology can shrink the gyroscope size by orders of magnitude, reducing the fabrication cost, and allowing the electronics to be integrated into the same silicon chip. Most currently available vibrating gyroscopes are based on the amplitude detection of the vibration induced by the Coriolis Effect (normal to the plane), which is proportional to the angular-velocity of the applied rotation. Researchers at the Georgia Institute of Technology have developed a novel vibrating micro-machined gyroscope that enables direct angular-velocity measurement in frequency domain. Applications: Micro-machined gyroscopes with improved characteristics have become one of the most important types of silicon-based sensors. They can be used as a low-cost miniature companion with micro-machined accelerometers to provide heading information for inertial navigation purposes, including automotive applications for ride stabilization and rollover detection; video-camera stabilization, virtual reality.The new gyroscope has a wide range of military applications including impact and void detection; safing and arming in missiles and other ordnance. Technology advantages: * Constant resonant frequency of the drive mode (explicit frequency output). * Better sensitivity (minimal detectable frequency is only limited by short-term stability and counting period length). * Frequency domain operation generally eliminates complex analog-to-digital converters. * Drive- and sense- mode amplitudes are adjustable by close-loop oscillation circuits for each sense mode. * Dynamic range (& sensitivity) can readily be adjusted by selecting proper amplitude ratios. * Intrinsic offset cancellations/drift removal is included, by disabling a drive mode oscillation (Coriolis force) and locking to the base frequency.