Claims
- 1. A method for aligning a micro-gyroscope having closed loop control of drive, output and sense axes, said method comprising the steps of:
detecting misalignment of said micro-gyroscope; and correcting misalignment to zero by an electrostatic bias adjustment.
- 2. The method as claimed in claim 1 wherein said step of detecting misalignment further comprises detecting misalignment by way of quadrature signal amplitude obtained by demodulation of a signal of said output axis using a signal in quadrature to rate signal for said drive axis.
- 3. The method as claimed in claim 1 further comprising the step of nulling an in-phase bias.
- 4. The method as claimed in claim 3 wherein said step of nulling an in-phase bias further comprises nulling by electronically coupling a torque component of said drive axis with said output axis.
- 5. A method for tuning a cloverleaf micro-gyroscope having closed loop control of drive, output and sense axes, said method comprising the steps of:
detecting residual mistuning by way of a signal; and correcting said residual mistuning to zero by way of electrostatic bias adjustment.
- 6. The method as claimed in claim 5 wherein said step of detecting residual mistuning further comprises detecting by way of a quadrature signal noise level.
- 7. The method as claimed in claim 5 wherein said step of detecting residual mistuning further comprises detecting by way of a transfer function test signal.
- 8. A method for independently aligning and tuning a cloverleaf micro-gyroscope having closed loop control of drive, output and sense axes, said method comprising the steps of:
detecting misalignment of said micro-gyroscope by way of a quadrature signal amplitude; correcting said misalignment to zero by way of an electrostatic bias adjustment; detecting residual mistuning by way of a signal; and correcting said residual mistuning by way of an electrostatic bias adjustment.
- 9. The method as claimed in claim 8 wherein said step of detecting a residual mistuning further comprises detecting a residual mistuning by way of a quadrature signal noise level.
- 10. The method as claimed in claim 8 wherein said step of detecting a residual mistuning further comprises detecting a residual mistuning by way of a transfer function test signal.
- 11. The method as claimed in claim 8 further comprising the step of nulling in-phase bias.
- 12. The method as claimed in claim 11 wherein said step of nulling further comprises electronically coupling a torque component of said drive axis with said output axis.
- 13. The method as claimed in claim 8 wherein said micro-gyroscope closed loop control further comprises:
using separate sensors and actuators for said step of correcting said misalignment and said step of correcting said residual mistuning.
- 14. The method as claimed in claim 8 wherein said step of correcting said misalignment further comprises the step of introducing an electrostatic cross-coupling spring, Kexy for canceling said misalignment.
- 15. The method as claimed in claim 14 further comprising the step of applying a bias voltage to a drive electrode on said drive axis that is different from a bias voltage to another drive electrode on said drive axis.
- 16. The method as claimed in claim 8 further comprising the step of introducing a relative gain mismatch, δT≈0, to each drive electrode on said drive axis.
- 17. The method as claimed in claim 8 further comprising the step of maximizing a stiffness matrix K.
- 18. The method as claimed in claim 8 wherein said step of correcting said residual mistuning to zero further comprises adjusting a total stiffness of said micro-gyroscope.
GOVERNMENT INTEREST
[0001] The invention described herein was made in the performance of work under a NASA contract, and is subject to the provisions of Public Law 96-517 (35 U.S.C. §202) in which the Contractor has elected to retain title.