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US 8,127,606 B2Granted
Fault tolerant multidimensional acceleration and/or rotation sensor arrays with minimum numbers of redundant single dimension sensors and associated signal computation means
OwnerTenny Dahlin Lodeinventor
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
An inertial system design approach that can sense and tolerate failures of individual single dimensional acceleration and/or rotation sensors with a minimal number of sensors. Sets of 4 single dimensional acceleration and/or rotation sensors can provide full 3 dimensional sensing in spite of a sensor malfunction or failure, and sets of 3 single dimensional acceleration and/or rotation sensors can provide full 2 dimensional sensing in spite of a sensor malfunction or failure.
Claims9
An inertial sensor system comprising:
- a plurality of inertial measurement devices, said plurality comprising either accelerometers, rotation sensors or both;
- each of said devices in said plurality capable of sensing an acceleration value or a rotation value along three different axes in substantially different directions, said acceleration or rotation values capable of being represented in vector form;
- signal detection and analysis means for receiving data from each of said devices in said plurality and applying appropriate multiplication factors for one or more of said acceleration or rotation values to determine if a vector sum of one or more acceleration or rotation values has a zero or near-zero vector value;
- and
- wherein said signal detection and analysis means correlates a significant non-zero vector value with a failure or malfunction in one or more inertial measurement devices.
2 more elements
An inertial sensor system comprising:
- a grouping of inertial measurement devices that form a set of three accelerometers, a set of three rotation sensors or a set of three accelerometers and three rotation sensors, the devices in a grouping capable of sensing an acceleration value or rotation value along three different axes in substantially different directions, the sensed acceleration or rotation values capable of being represented in vector form;
- a signal detection and analysis means for receiving said sensed acceleration or rotation values from each of said devices in a grouping and determining if a vector sum of said sensed acceleration or rotation values has a zero or near-zero vector value;
- and
- said signal detection and analysis means determining that a significant non-zero vector value indicates a malfunction in at least one of the devices in a grouping and allowing the system to continue to operate if two devices in a grouping remain functional.
1 more element
An inertial sensor system comprising:
- a grouped set of at least four accelerometers, a grouped set of at least four rotation sensors or a grouped set of at least four accelerometers and at least four rotation sensors, the accelerometers or rotation sensors in a grouped set capable of sensing an acceleration value or rotation value along three different axes in substantially different directions, the sensed acceleration or rotation values capable of being represented in vector form;
- a signal detection and analysis means for receiving said sensed acceleration or rotation values from each of the accelerometers or rotation sensors in a grouped set and determining if a vector sum of said sensed acceleration or rotation values has a zero or near-zero vector value;
- and
- said signal detection and analysis means determining that a significant non-zero vector value indicates a malfunction in at least one of the accelerometers or rotation sensors in a grouped set and allowing the system to continue to operate if at least two accelerometers or at least two rotation sensors in a grouped set remain functional.
1 more element
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.