US 2007/0163345 A1Published application

Angular velocity sensor

AssigneeMatsushita Electric Industrial Co., Ltd.

InventorToshiyuki Nozoe

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Abstract

An angular velocity sensor is provided, which is capable of accurate failure diagnosis on a detecting portion despite of its simple configuration and small size without providing additional means on an oscillator separately from the driving portion and a detecting portion. When a check signal for carrying out failure diagnosis is input to terminal (54) from outside, the degree of amplification at amplifier (45) is decreased, and the degree of amplification at amplifier (44) is simultaneously increased by an operation of AGC circuit (43). As a result, a driving signal having the decreased amplitude can be obtained at terminals (50) and (53), and a driving signal having the increased amplitude can be obtained at terminals (51) and (52). The driving signals are supplied to one driving electrode and another driving electrode, respectively, of a pair of driving electrodes spaced from each other across the center of the arm of a tuning fork type oscillator through terminals (50) to (53).

Claims9

Dependent claims

An angular velocity sensor comprising:

an oscillator;
a driving portion provided on the oscillator for driving the oscillator in an X-axis direction and a Z-axis direction;
a first driving circuit for supplying a driving signal for driving the oscillator in the X-axis direction to the driving portion;
a second driving circuit for supplying a driving signal for driving the oscillator in the X-axis direction and the Z-axis direction to the driving portion;
a detecting portion provided on the oscillator for detecting deflection of the oscillator during oscillation in the Z-axis direction;
an angular velocity detection circuit for outputting an angular velocity signal by amplifying and detecting a signal output from the detecting portion when the driving signal is supplied from the first driving circuit to the driving portion and an angular velocity is input about a Y-axis;
and
a self diagnosis circuit for outputting a signal enabling failure diagnosis on the detecting portion by amplifying and detecting a signal output from the detecting portion when the driving signal is supplied from the second driving circuit to the driving portion.

5 more elements

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.