Quartz Angular Rate Sensor for Automotive Application

A new compact angular rate sensor using quartz crystal was developed for automotive braking systems or vehicle navigation systems. The sensor's operation is based upon Coriolis force imposed on a vibrating bimorph quartz tuning fork. The reasons we used quartz crystal for the tuning fork are summarized below:

Quartz crystal's piezoelectric characteristics are beneficial for both inducing vibration in the driving tine elements and detecting Coriolis forces on the sense tine element.

Quartz has stable resonant characteristics due to its high Q value (low energy loss).

The control circuit has a one-chip C-MOS ASIC which consists of both a digital memory and an analog circuit. Adjustments of gain, zero and temperature offset are achieved using digital calibration.