Patent ID: 7040162

Claim:
A vibrating mass gyro comprising: a support, a mass, elastic suspensions fixing the mass to the support, one or more displacement motors sustaining a vibratory motion of the suspended mass, position sensors of the moving elements of the suspended mass, and a processing device extracting a measurement of circular oscillation rate from the signals delivered by the position sensors, wherein: the mechanical system consisting of the mass and the elastic suspensions fixing said mass to the support is configured to exhibit at least two orthogonal natural modes of oscillation whose combination induces a right or left circular motion of at least a part of the suspended mass, the displacement motor(s) are configured to excite the two orthogonal modes of oscillation so as to alternately cause right and left circular motions of at least a part of the suspended mass, and the processing device measures the frequency and/or the phase of each right or left circular motion on the basis of the signals provided by the position sensors and extracts a measurement of rate of rotation from the difference of the measurements of frequencies and/or of phase between right circular motion and left circular motion.