Patent ID: 8397569
Filing Date: 2013-03-19
Classification: G01C

Abstract:
1. An inertial force sensor comprising: an oscillator having a driving electrode, a monitor electrode, and a detecting electrode; a driving circuit configured to apply a driving signal to the driving electrode to oscillate the oscillator; a detecting circuit configured to detect an angular speed according to a detecting signal outputted from the detecting electrode due to an inertial force in a normal mode, the detecting circuit has a filter circuit which filters the detecting signal; an oscillation control circuit configured to control an energization amount of the driving signal according to a monitor signal outputted from the monitor electrode; and a fault diagnosing circuit, wherein when in a fault diagnosis mode, the detecting circuit is configured to switch a cutoff frequency of the filter circuit in the fault diagnosis mode higher than the cutoff frequency in the normal mode, and the fault diagnosing circuit is configured to input a pseudo angular speed signal to the detecting circuit for fault diagnosis after switching the cutoff frequency of the filter circuit.