Current State of Wave Solid-State Gyroscopes. Development Prospects in Applied Gyroscopy

Systems of orientation, stabilization, navigation, and control for various fields of industrial application and special engineering are built on a wide range of gyroscopes: classical mechanical gyros (MG), dynamically tuned gyros (DTG), various types of floated gyros (FG), electrostatic gyros (ESG), ring laser gyros (RLG), fiber optic gyros (FOG), micromechanical (MEMS) gyros. At the end of the last century (1982), a team from Delco (USA) headed by Professor David Lynch developed and presented the industrial model of a fundamentally new type of gyroscope - hemispherical resonator gyro (HRG). Unlike all of the above gyroscopes, HRG is based on a fundamentally new physical phenomenon - the preservation of inertial properties by standing waves, which are excited on the edge of the hemispheric resonator. Depending on the implementation of the mechanical standing wave control system, the instrument can operate in two modes: whole angle sensor (integrating gyroscope) and angular rate sensor (ARS). Modern HRG is a vacuumized housing in which a sensitive element and an electronic unit are placed. The sensitive element is a one-piece hemispherical resonator made of fused quartz glass which is rigidly fixed in a vacuum-tight base. The analysis of oscillations of the hemispherical resonator makes it possible to determine the angular positions of the gyroscope body relative to the inertial space. The distinctive features of the new inertial sensor are high accuracy, wide application temperature range, high operational reliability (P=0.995 for at least 15 years), lower cost due to the lower labor intensity in the industrial manufacture of this device.