ELECTROSTATIC GYROSCOPE WITH OPTICAL READING OF ROTOR AXIS POSITION AND METHOD TO DETERMINE ANGULAR POSITION OF ROTOR AXIS Russian patent published in 2014 - IPC G01C19/46 G01C19/24 

FIELD: instrument making.

SUBSTANCE: result is achieved by changing shape of a rotor pattern and introduction of a special type of additional modulation of light beams, and also due to identification of separate harmonic components of modulated signals and a single method for determination of angular rotor position by phase ratios of appropriate harmonic components both for rough and precise counts. For this purpose in the available electrostatic gyroscope comprising a rotor with a pattern applied on it from even number of light-absorbing strips inclined in identical manner to the equator, the shape of the strips is made so that in any width cross section of the rotor they are equidistant from each other by their centres and make a sequence of two alternating groups with identical even number of strips in the group. At the same time the width of strips in each group differs from the width of strips of the adjacent group located nearby and is equal to the width of gaps between strips of the adjacent group, and within one group the width of strips is same. Besides, in the method for detection of angular position of the rotor of the electrostatic gyroscope due to rotation of the rotor with the pattern of the specified shape the additional modulation of six light beams, axes of which create a rectangular system of coordinates, is carried out so that each modulated light beam represents a sequence of alternating groups of light pulses with high and low durations, and between centres of pauses of all pulses on the time axis there are equal intervals. Besides, in the group of pulses with high duration all pulses, apart from the extreme ones, are equal in duration to the interval of pause time between pulses of the group of pulses of low duration, and in the group of pulses with low duration all pulses, apart from the extreme ones, are equal in duration to the interval of pause time between pulses of the group of pulses with high duration. Besides, in the method to determine angular position of the rotor for each modulated signal there is identification of low-frequency harmonic component on the frequency of rotor rotation multiplied by quantity of groups of wide pulses per single rotor rotation, and high-frequency harmonic component on rotor rotation frequency multiplied by quantity of all pulses per single rotor rotation, and detection of angular position of the rotor is carried out by a multi-count method by differences of phases of appropriate harmonic components. Besides, by difference of phases of two low-frequency components corresponding to spatially adjacent light beams they determine the sign of projection of the vector of rotor kinetic torque by a coordinate axis perpendicular to these flows, by difference of phases of two low-frequency components corresponding to spatially opposite light beams, they determine rough value of the angle between the axis of rotor rotation and coordinate axis of these flows, and by difference of phases of two high-frequency components, corresponding to spatially opposite light beams, they determine the accurate value of the angle between the axis of rotor rotation and the coordinate axis of these flows.

EFFECT: increased accuracy of information detection on angular position of a rotor relative to a body of an electrostatic gyroscope in different modes of operation.

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