Micromechanical vibratory gyroscope sensor array

Abstract

A micromechanical gyroscopic sensor array for detecting rotational movement includes a plurality of vibrational microgyroscopic sensing elements fixedly oriented in a common plane relative to one another such that an in-plane direction and an out-of-plane direction orthogonal thereto are defined. A mechanism for driving each microgyroscopic sensing element at a predetermined in-plane drive frequency is provided. Each sensing element has a predefined out-of-plane resonant frequency selected such that a range of in-plane frequencies and/or out-of-plane resonant frequency differences exist among the sensing elements. A resonant gate transistor is associated with each sensing element for sensing out-of-plane motion and producing a sense signal representative thereof. Signal processing then converts the sense signal to a signal representative of rotational movement experienced by the micromechanical gyroscopic sensor array. A learning function can be added to the sensor array by associating adjustable weights with each sensing element and employing a neural network having feedback control of the adjustable weights.