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Micro-machined gyrometric sensor for differential measurement of the movement of vibrating masses

  • US 7,707,886 B2
  • Filed: 06/19/2006
  • Issued: 05/04/2010
  • Est. Priority Date: 07/05/2005
  • Status: Active Grant
First Claim
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1. A gyroscope with a vibrating structure, produced by micromachining a thin planar wafer, comprising:

  • two symmetrical moving assemblies that are symmetrical with respect to a central axis parallel to a direction Oy of the plane of the wafer and are coupled by a coupling structure that connects these two assemblies in order to allow mechanical vibration energy to be transferred between them, each of the two symmetrical moving assemblies comprises two moving elements, an inertial first moving element being connected to the coupling structure and able to vibrate in two degrees of freedom in orthogonal directions Ox and Oy of the plane of the wafer, and a second moving element being connected, on one side, to the first element and, on the other side, to fixed anchoring regions via linking means that allow the vibration movement of the first element in the Oy direction to be transmitted to the second element without permitting any movement of the second element in the Ox direction, an excitation structure being associated with the first moving element in order to excite a vibration of the first element along Ox, and a double movement detection structure comprising first and second elementary detection structures being associated with the second moving element of each of the two assemblies in order to detect a vibration of the second elements along Oy, the first moving element being an intermediate frame surrounding the second moving element, denoted by the name moving mass, and the coupling structure comprising two outer frames, each of which surrounds the intermediate frame of a respective moving assembly, wherein each elementary detection structure comprises a first detection module and a second detection module which are symmetrical with respect to an axis of symmetry parallel to the Ox direction, the first detection modules of each elementary structure on the one hand and the second detection modules of each elementary structure on the other hand being symmetrical with respect to the central axis parallel to the Oy direction, the first and second modules of each elementary structure delivering separate detection signals that vary inversely with respect to one another, these being first and second signals S1M1, S1M2 in the case of the first and second modules of the first elementary structure and third and fourth signals S2M1, S2M2 in the case of the first and second modules of the second elementary structure, and means being provided for producing the linear combination S1M1+S2M2

    S1M2

    S2M1.

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