Patent ID: 8146423

Claim:
A method of measuring movement of a device, the method comprising: generating, from an ion source, a first ion stream driven in a first direction along an imaginary line; generating, from the ion source, a second ion stream driven in a second direction along the imaginary line and substantially opposite the first direction; detecting first and second amounts of the first ion stream impinging, respectively, on each detector in a first pair of detectors; detecting third and fourth amounts of the second ion stream impinging, respectively, on each detector in a second pair of detectors; and generating at least one of a first output signal representing rotation of the device and a second output signal representing linear acceleration of the device, each as a function of the detected first, second, third and fourth impinging amounts of the first and second ion streams, wherein each of the first and second pairs of detectors is fixedly spaced apart from the ion source.