US 5,712,427 AGranted

Vibratory rotation sensor with scanning-tunneling-transducer readout

AssigneeLitton Systems, Inc.

InventorAnthony Matthews

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Abstract

A vibratory rotation sensor that utilizes non-capacitive mechanical displacement detectors (24) to detect the flexural standing wave pattern in a hemispherical resonator (14). In a preferred embodiment, a plurality of tunneling transducers (24) are positioned around the hemispherical resonator (14) to detect the standing wave. A "force-to-rebalance" mechanization mode is preferably used for calculating the sensor's rate of rotation, with a transducer (24) placement that allows for constant calibration of the sensor's scale factor. In addition, a pickoff transducer orientation is provided that allows for simultaneous calculation of the sensor's rotation angle and any linear acceleration that is exerted on the sensor's hemispherical resonator (14), thereby allowing the sensor to be simultaneously used as a rotation sensor and an accelerometer.

Claims8

Dependent claims

A rotation sensor comprising:

a resonator capable of sustaining a flexural standing wave pattern symmetrically distributed about a polar axis;
a plurality of forcer electrodes positioned to initiate and maintain a flexural standing wave pattern in the resonator;
a plurality of non-capacitive transducers positioned adjacent to the resonator to characterize the flexural standing wave pattern, each transducer being positioned adjacent to a different area on the resonator and generating a transducer signal that varies as a function of the distance between the transducer and its respective resonator area, at least one pair of the transducers having an angular separation selected from the value ranges (1) greater than 0 degrees and less than 25 degrees, (2) greater than 155 degrees and less than 180 degrees, and (3) greater than 180 and less than 205 degrees;
a controller connected to drive the plurality of forcer electrodes with voltages derived from the transducer signals.

1 more element

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.