Gyroscopes

Eric Ruben
Mechatronics Literature Survey
Dept. of Electrical and Computer Engineering
Utah State University
E: e.r@aggiemail.usu.edu
T: 801-916-2400

2/17/2009
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Outline
– Introduction
– History
– Basic Principle
– Applications
– Advantages
– Disadvantages
– Cost
– Works Cited

05/06/22 ECE5320 Mechatronics. Assignment#1 Survey on sensors and actuators

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Introduction
• Most everyone has used some form of gyroscope in their
lifetime. But perhaps they did not recognize it.
• Simply put, a gyroscope consists of a rotor that is
journaled to spin about an axis. Often the spinning rotor
is gimbaled and allowed to move freely. This spinning
rotor has some very useful physical properties.
• One of these properties can even
be seen in a simple $7
gyroscope toy. That is, when a
rotor spins about an axis, that
axis tends to want to maintain its
spacial orientation.
05/06/22 ECE5320 Mechatronics. Assignment#1 Survey on sensors and actuators
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Introduction
• A second important property of gyroscopes can be
observed from the common Bicycle Wheel Gyro
experiment.
• In the experiment a person sits in a pivoting office chair
while holding a spinning bicycle wheel.
• As the person tilts the spin axis to the left
a seemingly invisible force begins to pivot
his/her chair to the left.
• This action is a result of a property called
precession. This property will be
discussed in greater detail later.

05/06/22 ECE5320 Mechatronics. Assignment#1 Survey on sensors and actuators

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History
• 1817. Johann Bohnenberger created the first know
gyroscope, calling it simply the “machine”.
• 1820. Pierre-Simon Laplace recommended the
“machine” be used as a teaching aide.
• 1852. Leon Foucault coins the name “gyroscope” when
he uses Bohnenberger’s “machine” in an experiment
involving the earth’s rotation.
• 1905 – 1908. The first gyroscope for marine navigation
was developed by German inventor Hermann Anschutz-
Kaempfe.

05/06/22 ECE5320 Mechatronics. Assignment#1 Survey on sensors and actuators

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History
• 1917. The “Chandler gyroscope” toy was invented by
the Chandler Company in Indiana. It is still considered a
classic American toy.
• 1991. Charles Stark Draper Laboratory demostrated one
of the first MEMS or “Vibratory” gyroscopes fabricated
in silicon.

05/06/22 ECE5320 Mechatronics. Assignment#1 Survey on sensors and actuators

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Basic Principle
• Gyroscopes operate on a physical property of
spinning objects known as “precession”.
• Precession is the
phenomenon observed in the
bicycle wheel experiment. If
an input force is applied
against the spin axis the
wheel will resist it by
generating an output force
perpendicular and
proportional to the input.
05/06/22 ECE5320 Mechatronics. Assignment#1 Survey on sensors and actuators
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Basic Principle
• Precession is an interesting property of gyroscopes. But
how can it be used to create useful sensors?
• Gyroscopes can be used to measure orientation, tilt
(gravity), and external force. Gyroscopes are also used
to determine the position of a body in space, but this
often requires the integration of additional sensors like
accelerometers.
• Some of the more common applications of gyroscopes
will be discussed here in greater detail.

05/06/22 ECE5320 Mechatronics. Assignment#1 Survey on sensors and actuators

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Basic Principle
• Gimbals can be used to provide the spinning rotor with
additional degrees of freedom.
• The gyroscope shown here
has both an inner and outer
gimbal, allowing the rotor
to pivot about 2 different
axis.
• This is knows as a two
degree-of-freedom (2DOF)
gyroscope.

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Basic Principle
• Interestingly, If a 2 DOF gyroscope rotor is left
spinning with a spin axis orientation other than the
north celestial pole, the spin axis will appear to us on
Earth to have rotated every 24 hours.
• This is due to the law
of conservation of
angular momentum.

05/06/22 ECE5320 Mechatronics. Assignment#1 Survey on sensors and actuators

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Applications
Gyroscopic sensing is an older technology that is
continually finding new uses. Some or the more typical
applications include:
• Naval navigation systems and stabilizers.
• Aircraft attitude controllers and stabilizers.
• Inertial guidance systems for ballistic missiles.
• Video game controllers.
• Image stabilization systems on video cameras.

05/06/22 ECE5320 Mechatronics. Assignment#1 Survey on sensors and actuators

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Gyrocompasses
• Gyrocompasses use a spinning rotor to locate true north,
however, an additional torque is needed to offset forces
exerted by the Earth’s rotation (discussed earlier).
• Using weights is the most practical
method for providing the offset
torque. Weights force the axis of
rotation to remain horizontal with
respect to the earth’s surface. Being
thus constrained the gyroscope
continually realigns itself, pointing
towards true north.
05/06/22 ECE5320 Mechatronics. Assignment#1 Survey on sensors and actuators
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Inertial Navigation Systems

• Most sophisticated aircraft and missile systems use INS
to determine their location and orientation.
• The gyroscope sensor is only one component of the INS
but it is very important. It provides information about
the plant’s orientation.
• Combining orientation
information with data
collected from
accelerometers an onboard
computer can determine
the objects location.
05/06/22 ECE5320 Mechatronics. Assignment#1 Survey on sensors and actuators
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Inclinometers
• Gyroscopes are used extensively in land, air and sea
vehicles to take high precision tilt measurements, much
like inertial navigation systems only without the
accelerometers.
• An good example would be an aircraft that uses 3
gyroscopes to measure the pitch, roll and yaw.

05/06/22 ECE5320 Mechatronics. Assignment#1 Survey on sensors and actuators

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MEMS Gyroscopes
• The size, accuracy and cost of MEMS gyroscopes makes
them an attractive option for many applications.
• One common type of MEMS gyroscope is the vibrating
wheel gyroscope. Vibrating wheels operate much like
the macroscopic spinning wheel gyroscope but use
capacitive sensors to determine changes in attitude.
• The drawing to the right
shows a vibrating wheel
gyroscope with a z
direction spin axis.

05/06/22 ECE5320 Mechatronics. Assignment#1 Survey on sensors and actuators

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Advantages
• Most MEMS gyroscopes are extremely small,
lightweight, and inexpensive.
• Sensor resolution depends largely on the spin rate of the
rotor and can be much higher than other force, or tilt
sensors.
• A gyrocompass, unlike a magnetic compass, indicates
true north as opposed to magnetic north. This makes
gyroscopes the preferred sensor for high precision
navigation systems.

05/06/22 ECE5320 Mechatronics. Assignment#1 Survey on sensors and actuators

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Disadvantages
• In general, gyroscopes are a more expensive alternative
to navigation and tilt sensing.
• A free moving gyroscope is always dependant on the
rotation of the Earth. For this reason fast moving objects
moving on a trajectory from east to west cannot use
gyroscopes for navigation.

05/06/22 ECE5320 Mechatronics. Assignment#1 Survey on sensors and actuators

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Cost
• Most applications today use MEMs gyroscopes because
they are small and relatively inexpensive. Here is a
comparison of some expensive and inexpensive ones:
Part Range Sensitivity Supply Price
Current
ADXRS610 +/- 300 deg/s 6 mV/deg*s 3.5mA $19.98

ADXRS150 +/- 150 deg/s 12.5 mV/deg*s 6mA $30.36

ADIS6255 +/- 80 deg/s .018 deg/sec*LSB 18mA $56.57

ADIS16120 +/- 300 deg/s .2 deg/sec*mV 95mA $636.55

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Future Work
• Most development being done in gyroscopes as
sensors is focused on reducing the size and
improving the precision of MEMS gyroscopes.
• Much of this research is
fueled by DARPA and
the military. The goal is
to produce a small, light
weight, and inexpensive
6-axis Inertial
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Works Cited
• Analog Devices. (2009). iMEMS Gyroscopes. Retrieved
February 15, 2009, from Analog Devices:
http://www.analog.com/en/mems-and-sensors/imems-
gyroscopes/products/index.html
• Conventor. (2008, February). Gyroscope Application
Examples. Retrieved February 15, 2009, from Conventor:
http://www.coventor.com/pdfs/Gyro_Applications.pdf
• Kaumualii High School. (2004). Bicycle Wheel Gyro.
Retrieved February 14, 2009, from Kaumualii High:
http://www.kaumualii.k12.hi.us/technology/science/pdf/for
ces/Bicycle%20Wheel%20Gyro.pdf
05/06/22 ECE5320 Mechatronics. Assignment#1 Survey on sensors and actuators
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Works Cited
• muRata. (2007). Piezoelectric Vibrating Gyroscopes.
Retrieved February 15, 2009, from Gyrostar:
http://www.murata.com/catalog/s42e.pdf
• Nasiri, S. (2006, July). A Critical Review of MEMS
Gyroscopes Technology and Commercialization Status.
Retrieved Feb 15, 2009, from InvenSense:
http://www.invensense.com/shared/pdf/MEMSGyroComp.
pdf

05/06/22 ECE5320 Mechatronics. Assignment#1 Survey on sensors and actuators