Hot-wire anemometer gyro pickoff
AssigneeThe United States of America as represented by the Secretary of the Army
InventorEscar L. Bailey
Life of this patent
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Abstract
An arrangement of hot-wire anemometers is set partially into the rotor boary layer so that they form two resistors of a wheatstone bridge circuit for each axis. The hot wire resistors change in resistance according to the angular offset from null of the gyro rotor. The combination of resistance changes is then used in the bridge circuit to provide an electrical signal which is directly proportional to gyro rotor angular offset.
Claims6
In a system for measuring movement of a rotating means which has a boundary layer of flowing fluid about its rotating surface, the improvement comprising a nonlinear resistor having a length which is long in comparision to its diameter;
- circuit means connected to said resistor so as to cause current flow through said resistor and to cause said resistor to increase in temperature;
- said resistor being placed relative to said rotating means such that only a portion of said resistor will be in said boundary layer;
- when said rotating means moves relatively to said resistor, a different proportion of said resistor will be within said boundary layer;
- said nonlinear resistor being such that the more of the resistor that is located within the boundary layer, the more the resistor is cooled;
- and measurement means connected to said resistor to sense the amount of cooling of the resistor, and therefore, the amount of motion of said rotating means relative to said resistor.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.