Compact Vibratory Gyroscope

This paper presents a piezoelectric-ceramic vibratory gyroscope with a vibrator that has fewer electrodes than a conventional gyroscope, and a method using driving and detecting circuits. This circuit can compensate the decrease of the scale factor due to miniaturization of the gyroscope. The vibrator of this vibratory gyroscope consists of a piezoelectric-ceramic cylinder with four electrodes. The two electrodes facing each other are used for picking up, and connected to two current-detecting circuits, and the other two electrodes facing each other are used for applying opposite-phase voltages to drive the vibrator. This design is promising for miniaturization of the vibratory gyroscope with the same scale factor as a conventional gyroscope.