266 results about "Angular rate sensor" patented technology

An instrumented golf club system having an instrumented golf club, an interface means and a computing means is disclosed herein. The instrumented golf club includes a plurality of sensors, an internal power supply, an angular rate sensor and an internal ring buffer memory for capturing data relating to a golf swing. The interface means is capable of transferring data from the instrumented golf club to the computing means for processing the data and presenting the data in a useful and informative format. The data may be used to assist a golfer's swing, or to design an appropriate golf club for a specific type of golfer.

A self-contained, integrated micro-cube-sized inertial measurement unit is provided wherein accuracy is achieved through the use of specifically oriented sensors, the orientation serving to substantially cancel noise and other first-order effects, and the use of a noise-reducing algorithm such as wavelet cascade denoising and an error correcting algorithm such as a Kalman filter embedded in a digital signal processor device. In a particular embodiment, a pair of three sets of angle rate sensors are orientable triaxially in opposite directions, wherein each set is mounted on a different sector of a base orientable normal to the other two and comprising N gyroscopes oriented at 360 / N-degree increments, where N≧2. At least one accelerometer is included to provide triaxial data. Signals are output from the angle rate sensors and accelerometer for calculating a change in attitude, position, angular rate, acceleration, and / or velocity of the unit.

A micro integrated Global Positioning System (GPS) / Inertial Measurement Unit (IMU) System, which is adapted to apply to output signals proportional to rotation and translational motion of a carrier and GPS measurements of the carrier, respectively from angular rate sensors, acceleration sensors, and GPS chipset, is employed with MEMS angular rate and acceleration sensors and GPS chipset. Compared with a conventional IMU / GPS system, the system of the present invention uses an integrated processing scheme by means of digital closed loop control of the dither driver signals for MEMS angular rate sensors, a feedforward open-loop signal processing scheme of the IMU, digital temperature control and compensation, the earth's magnetic field-based heading damping, robust error estimator, and compact sensor and circuit architecture and dramatically shrinks the size of mechanical and electronic hardware and power consumption, meanwhile, obtains highly accurate motion measurements.

Angular rate sensor for detecting rotation about first, second and third mutually perpendicular input axes having a plurality of generally planar proof masses coupled together for linear drive-mode oscillation along multi-directional drive axes in a plane formed by the first and second input axes. The masses are mounted on a generally planar sense frame for linear movements relative to the sense frame in drive-mode and for rotation together with the sense frame in sense modes. The sense frame is mounted for rotation with the masses in sense modes about the first, second, and third input axes independent of each other, in response to Coriolis forces produced by rotation of the masses about the first, second, and third input axes respectively. And capacitance sensors responsive to the rotational movements of the masses and the sense frame in sense modes are employed for monitoring rate of rotation.

An angular rate sensor made from a structural wafer of single crystal silicon has a pair of proof masses lying in an X-Y plane and supported by a circular frame. The masses are driven into oscillation in the X-direction using an interdigitated comb drive. Rotation of the sensor about the Z-axis induces Coriolis forces which cause the frame to rotate, the rotation of the frame being indicative of the angular rate of the sensor. A parallel plate sensor located outside of the circular frame senses rotation of the frame.

An instrumented golf club system having an instrumented golf club, an interface means and a computing means is disclosed herein. The instrumented golf club includes a plurality of sensors, an internal power supply, an angular rate sensor and an internal ring buffer memory for capturing data relating to a golf swing. The interface means is capable of transferring data from the instrumented golf club to the computing means for processing the data and presenting the data in a useful and informative format. The data may be used to assist a golfer's swing, or to design an appropriate golf club for a specific type of golfer.

An angular velocity sensor including a drive extension mode. In one aspect, an angular rate sensor includes a base and at least three masses disposed substantially in a plane parallel to the base, the masses having a center of mass. At least one actuator drives the masses in an extension mode, such that in the extension mode the masses move in the plane simultaneously away or simultaneously towards the center of mass. At least one transducer senses at least one Coriolis force resulting from motion of the masses and angular velocity about at least one input axis of the sensor. Additional embodiments can include a linkage that constrains the masses to move in the extension mode.

A method and system senses the attitude of an accelerating object by measuring acceleration with accelerometers in three orthogonal axes and measuring angular rate with angular rate sensors disposed about each such axis to compute attitude of the object accurately relative to a vertical axis. A processor updates a quaternion representation of attitude based upon the angular rate of the object, and a corrective rate signal is determined from level frame acceleration as a reference for a Kalman filter in calculating the attitude of the object. When velocity or airspeed is available from an external source, an aiding algorithm is employed to provide accurate attitude representations throughout all flight regimes.

The invention discloses a positioning system of a mobile robot and a positioning method thereof. The positioning system comprises a base station. A dead reckoning positioning system comprises an angular rate sensor used for acquiring angle information of the mobile robot and a displacement sensor used for acquiring walking distance information of the mobile robot. An ultrasonic laser positioning system comprises an ultrasonic laser transmitting device arranged on the base station, an ultrasonic laser receiving device arranged on the mobile robot and an information processing system. The position coordinates of the mobile robot in the ultrasonic laser positioning system can be obtained through the information exchange between the ultrasonic laser transmitting device and the ultrasonic laser receiving device. A data fusion unit is used for the fusion of the angle information and the walking distance information in the dead reckoning positioning system as well as the fusion of two position coordinates in the dead reckoning positioning system and the ultrasonic laser positioning system. The elimination of accumulated errors in the dead reckoning positioning system is implemented by the ultrasonic laser positioning system through the data fusion unit.

An instrumented golf club system having an instrumented golf club, an interface means and a computing means is disclosed herein. The instrumented golf club includes a plurality of sensors, an internal power supply, an angular rate sensor and an internal ring buffer memory for capturing data relating to a golf swing. The interface means is capable of transferring data from the instrumented golf club to the computing means for processing the data and presenting the data in a useful and informative format. The data may be used to assist a golfer's swing, or to design an appropriate golf club for a specific type of golfer.

An oscillatory rate sensor is described for sensing rotation about the “z-axis”. It is tuning-fork in nature with structural linkages and dynamics such that fundamental anti-phase oscillation of two proof masses is accomplished by virtue of the mechanical linkages.

A modular device, system and associated method, used to enhance the quality and output speed of any generic GPS engine is provided. The modular device comprises an inertial subsystem based on a solid state gyroscope having a plurality of accelerometers and a plurality of angular rate sensors designed to measure linear acceleration and rotation rates around a plurality of axes. The modular inertial device may be placed in the data stream between a standard GPS receiver and a guidance device to enhance the accuracy and increase the frequency of positional solutions. Thus, the modular inertial device accepts standard GPS NMEA input messages from the source GPS receiver, corrects and enhances the GPS data using computed internal roll and pitch information, and produces an improved, more accurate, NMEA format GPS output at preferably 2 times the positional solution rate using GPS alone. The positional solution frequency using the present invention may increase to as much as 5 times that obtained using GPS alone. Moreover, the modular inertial device may assist when the GPS signal is lost for various reasons. If used without GPS, the modular inertial device may be used to define, and adjust, a vehicle's orientation on a relative basis. The modular inertial device and architecturally partitioned system incorporated into an existing GPS system may be applied to navigation generally, including high-precision land-based vehicle positioning, aerial photography, crop dusting, and sonar depth mapping to name a few applications.

An oscillatory rate sensor is described for sensing rotation about the “z-axis”. It is tuning-fork in nature with structural linkages and dynamics such that fundamental anti-phase oscillation of two proof masses is accomplished by virtue of the mechanical linkages.

A motion sensor in the form of an angular rate sensor and a method of making a sensor are provided and includes a support substrate and a silicon sensing ring supported by the substrate and having a flexive resonance. Drive electrodes apply electrostatic force on the ring to cause the ring to resonate. Sensing electrodes sense a change in capacitance indicative of vibration modes of resonance of the ring so as to sense motion. A plurality of silicon support rings connect the substrate to the ring. The support rings are located at an angle to substantially match a modulus of elasticity of the silicon, such as about 22.5 degrees and 67.5 degrees, with respect to the crystalline orientation of the silicon.

A method for estimation of relative coordinates between at least two parts of a system comprising the steps of: (A) providing each of at least two parts of the system with at least one coordinate sensor; (B) measuring a set of relevant coordinates for each part of the system; and (C) processing each measurement result performed in the step (B) to estimate the relative coordinates between at least two parts of the system. The relative coordinates are selected from the group consisting of: {relative position coordinates; relative position rate (velocity) coordinates; relative position acceleration coordinates; relative angle coordinates; relative angular rate coordinates; and relative angular acceleration coordinates}.

The devices presented herein are capacitive sensors with single crystal silicon on all key stress points. Isolating trenches are formed by trench and refill forming dielectrically isolated conductive silicon electrodes for drive, sense and guards. For pressure sensing devices according to the invention, the pressure port is opposed to the electrical wire bond pads for ease of packaging. Dual-axis accelerometers measuring in plane acceleration and out of plane acceleration are also described. A third axis in plane is easy to achieve by duplicating and rotating the accelerometer 90 degrees about its out of plane axis Creating resonant structures, angular rate sensors, bolometers, and many other structures are possible with this process technology. Key advantages are hermeticity, vertical vias, vertical and horizontal gap capability, single crystal materials, wafer level packaging, small size, high performance and low cost.

A vehicle rollover sensing apparatus and method are provided for detecting a rollover condition of the vehicle. The rollover sensing apparatus includes an angular rate sensor for sensing attitude rate of change of a vehicle and a lateral accelerometer for sensing lateral dynamics of the vehicle. The rollover sensing apparatus also has an integrator for integrating the sensed attitude rate of change signal over a variable time window and producing an attitude angle. The rollover sensing apparatus further includes deployment logic for comparing the attitude angle and attitude rate of change to a pair of variable threshold values with a gray-zone that varies based on time, and for deploying a vehicle overturn condition signal based on the comparison. Sensitivity of the deployment logic is adjusted as a function of the sensed lateral dynamics to enhance rollover deployment during certain driving events.

A multi-axis accelerometer or a multi-axis angular rate sensor which can be made by an easy process and the size of which can be greatly reduced is provided. An inertia sensor has a substrate, a flat proofmass formed on the substrate and a stacked structure including at least a lower electrode, a piezoelectric film, and an upper electrode, an anchor unit formed in a cutout inside of the proofmass and fixed on the substrate, and a plurality of flat piezoelectric beams each having one end connected to the proofmass, the other end connected to the anchor unit, and a stacked structure formed in a cutout inside of the proofmass and including at least a lower electrode, a piezoelectric film, and an upper electrode, wherein the inertia sensor enables to detect an acceleration applied on the proofmass based on charges generated to the electrodes of the piezoelectric beams.

A method and system senses the attitude of an accelerating object by measuring acceleration with accelerometers in three orthogonal axes and measuring angular rate with angular rate sensors disposed about each such axis to compute attitude of the object accurately relative to a vertical axis. A processor updates a quaternion representation of attitude based upon the angular rate of the object, and a corrective rate signal is determined from level frame acceleration as a reference for a Kalman filter in calculating the attitude of the object. When velocity or airspeed is available from an external source, an aiding algorithm is employed to provide accurate attitude representations throughout all flight regimes.

A method for initializing a controller of a balancing transporter involving acquiring a plurality of orientation signals associated with the balancing transporter. The method also involves determining if one or more of a plurality of angular rate sensors has a signal output offset below a threshold based on the plurality of orientation sensor signals. The method also involves initializing a pitch state estimator for controlling operation of the balancing transporter based on output of the one or more of the plurality of angular rate sensors. The method also involves controlling operation of the balancing transporter based on at least one output of the pitch state estimator.

A micro angular rate-sensing device is provided. A vibrator, having a plurality of proof masses connected to a ring, is arranged in a first base. Flexible supporting members connect to the vibrator to suspend the vibrator in the first base. Electrodes drive the vibrator to oscillate and control the oscillation mode of the vibrator in driving mode. Planar electrodes are arranged relative to the proof masses on a second base. The motion of the proof masses relative to the planar electrodes is sensed through the capacitance between the proof masses and the planar electrodes. The resonant structure with greater mass of the device generates greater Coriolis force and increases the sensing area. Thus, the intensity of sensed signals and noise-signal ratio are greatly increased. Furthermore, the device does not rely much on high aspect ratio manufacturing technology. Thus the manufacturing cost is reduced and the yield rate is increased.

An angular rate sensor has a vibrator vibrating along a reference direction at a fixed frequency in response to a driving signal, and vibrating along a detecting direction perpendicular to the reference direction in accordance with an angular velocity given to the vibrator. A monitoring signal generator generates a monitoring signal having a waveform of the vibrator vibration along the reference direction. A clock signal generator generates, from the monitoring signal, a first clock signal and a second clock signal having a frequency identical with that of the first clock signal and a level change occurring at a time differing from that in the second clock signal. The first clock signal is used to maintain the vibrator vibration along the reference direction. An angular velocity detector detects the angular velocity from a waveform of the vibrator vibration along the detecting direction by using the second clock signal.

An angular rate sensor having two generally planar proof masses, a drive axis in the plane of the masses, and an input axis perpendicular to the drive axis. The masses are suspended from a sensing frame and constrained for anti-phase movement along the drive axis in drive-mode. The sensing frame is mounted for torsional movement in sense-mode about the input axis in response to Coriolis forces produced by rotation of the masses about the input axis, with sensors responsive to the torsional movement of the sensing frame and the masses about the input axis for monitoring rate of rotation.

A device coupled with a magnetometer and an angular rate sensor can determine a heading of the device using magnetometer data. When the device receives a notification that the magnetometer data may be inaccurate, the device can determine the heading of the device using angular rate data. When the device determines that the magnetometer data are accurate, the device can resume determining the heading of the device using the magnetometer data.

The invention discloses a vehicle-mounted Ku wave band satellite communication small-bore antenna system which comprises an antenna reflecting surface, a feed source, an LNB (low noise block downconverter), a receiving-transmitting duplexer, an antenna controller, and the like. A one-to-two shunt is arranged on a bottom plate of an antenna rotating platform, and output signals of the LNB are divided into two paths through the one-to-two shunt, wherein one path of signals are transmitted to a satellite beacon receiver for tracking the antenna, while the other path of signals are transmitted to a modulator-demodulator through a waveguide / coaxial rotary joint. After the antenna is started, the antenna automatically searches the satellite, i.e. carries out open loop tracking, and once the antenna finds the satellite, the antenna carries out close loop tracking. The invention has compact and simple structure, light weight of the whole antenna system and fast response. An adopted three-dimensional coordinate system is a dynamic coordinate system moving along with the antenna, and a piezoelectric type angular rate sensor is respectively arranged on the three coordinate axes so as to ensure that the antenna is exactly aligned to the satellite.