NON-RESONANT FOUR DEGREES-OF-FREEDOM MICROMACHINED GYROSCOPE

摘要

A non-resonant micromachined gyroscope with inherent disturbance-or quadrature error rejection comprises a first active proof mass (12) and a second passive proof mass (14), which are suspended above a substrate (16). Flexures (20) extend between active proof mass (12) and the ground, which is anchored to substrate (16). Flexures (18) mechanically couple proof mass (12) and proof mass (14) together. The gyroscope has two orthogonal axes of oscillation: the drive axis and the sense axis. Both masses are free to oscillate in either the drive or sense directions. Active mass (12) is driven to oscillate along the drive axis, wherein passive proof mass (14) dynamically amplifies the drive oscillations of active masses (12), while sensing any Coriolis forces along the orthogonal sense axis. The architecture of the present invention result in a four-degree-of freedom system, which has a response curve having a flat response region having a gain insensitive to frequency fluctuations, thereby improving bandwidth 15 times over a two-degree-of-freedom system.