A tubular piezoelectric vibrator gyroscope

This paper proposes a vibrator gyroscope made of a piezoelectric tube, which has the same configuration as that used for the tri-axial sensors and actuators developed in our previous paper. The gyroscopic operation is the same as a circular rod, but the polarization (in thickness direction of the shell) and, accordingly, the electrode arrangement are much simpler. Wireless LAN arrangement is devised for remote data access with which the measurement is possible for the gyroscope under rotation. The experimental results are compared with the numerical simulation with three-dimensional finite-element calculation. The discrepancy between the measured and the experimental is found to depend on the asymmetrical deformation of the structure, and the cause is clearly demonstrated via simulation. This shows the usefulness of the numerical modeling to investigate the cause, in which the parameters of dimensions and boundary conditions can easily change.