Gyroscopes and Angular Velocity

Thread Starter

tttmmmsss

Joined Apr 20, 2010
8
Just a quick question about gyroscopes. I wanted to make sure, but they measure angular acceleration, just like regular accelerometers, correct?

For some reason I had thought that they indicated direction more like a magnetosensor, but After a clearheaded moment, I realized that that was false.

Thank you for any responce in this matter!

~Tim S.
 
This question may very well be above my pay grade and understanding, but as someone who uses gyros, the main thing that causes precession is the application of some force on a spinning object. Which is seen or effected 90 degrees ahead of rotation in the same direction as the force.
In fact rigidity in space is what make a gyro work, and only things like friction in bearings and the force I was talking about cause precession.
Some of our gyros have pendulous vanes which use precession to correct for precession in attitude indicators..
If you ever want to see an invention cooler than a toilet check out pendelous vanes in an attitude indicator or artificial horizon...

I would love to see the math behind this so I hope someone
 

Thread Starter

tttmmmsss

Joined Apr 20, 2010
8
Oh, sorry, I was looking at the gyro's they had at Sparkfun and I was wondering if the gyros would keep track of orientation, or if they would just measure angular accelleration, like how normal chip accelerometers function. Thanks for the input, I don't need any more help with this matter, though.

Thanks again!

~Tim S.
 

Ghar

Joined Mar 8, 2010
655
You can try to use the gyro for orientation but that requires integrating the gyro's velocity measurement which entails all sorts of error problems as the gyro drifts and any offsets in your measurement accumulate.
 

atferrari

Joined Jan 6, 2004
4,764
The expresion that puzzles me (sorry those posting before) is "measures". Isn't a gyroscope something able to mantain an axis parallel to itself when displaced (consequently pointing to the same point in the infinit)?

In my limited knowledge as a user of gyrocompasses for many years, I understand that what I do later with that capability, amongst other things could be measure and so on...

In short, the gyro by itself, measures nothing.
 
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