The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document.
The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge covers the following: Patent number, Date patent was issued, Date patent was filed, Title of the patent, Applicant, Inventor, Assignee, Attorney firm, Primary examiner, Assistant examiner, CPCs, and Abstract. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document (in Adobe Acrobat format, aka pdf). To download or print any patent click here.
Patent No.:
Date of Patent:
Feb. 17, 2004
Filed:
Dec. 27, 2001
Eberhard Handrich, Kirchzarten, DE;
Litef GmbH, Freiburg im Breisgau, DE;
Abstract
An accelerometer having a micromechanical pendulum, a capacitive pick off and a control loop reset by electrostatic forces and, in a time sequence, applies a resetting voltage between the pendulum and two electrodes spaced apart on opposite sides of the pendulum. The control loop is designed such that, firstly, no charge difference flows via the pendulum and a force of identical magnitude thus acts on both sides of the pendulum. Secondly, when a pendulum deflection occurs in response to a voltage difference, the time durations of the respectively applied voltage pulses are impeded in accordance with the acceleration. The simultaneous control of two components results in the control bias tending essentially to zero. The capability of temporarily switching to detection of the total charge as the control variable also allows control of the scale factor of the accelerometer.