| 摘要 |
<p>A system for determining angular rate of rotation of a body about a rate axis. In one arrangement, the system comprises first (10) and second (12) accelerometers, movement means and processing means. The first and second accelerometers have their sensitive axes (16, 18) parallel to a sensing axis that is in turn perpendicular to the rate axis. The first and second accelerometers are adapted to produce first and second output signals (a1, a2), each output signal having a frequency corresponding to the acceleration experienced by the respective accelerometer along its sensitive axis. The movement means includes means (68) for producing a periodic movement signal and means (14) responsive to the movement signal for periodically moving the accelerometers along a movement axis perpendicular to the rate and sensing axes, such that each output signal includes a periodic Coriolis component. The processing means includes means (75) for producing a reference signal that defines one or more first time periods during which the Coriolis components have one polarity and one or more second time periods during which the Coriolis components have the opposite polarity. The first and second time periods together span one or more complete periods of the movement signal. The processing means further comprises means (71, 72) for determining, for each output signal, a phase value representing the difference between the phase change of the output signal during the first time periods and the phase change of the output signal during the second time periods. The processing means further includes means (80) for determining from the phase values a value representing the angular rate of rotation of the body about the rate axis. In a second arrangement, a single accelerometer is periodically moved along the movement axis.</p> |
