LOW COST GUIDANCE SYSTEMS

Development of an Inertia Measuring Unit (IMD) to be packaged in a strapdown Inertial Navigation System (INS) is proposed. The IMU design is based upon the silicon accelerometers developed by Waddan Systems. A pair of these devices, mounted on inclined webs in a hollow cylindrical rotor with their input axes pointing in the diametrically opposite directions at an angle, can be employed to determine the linear acceleration component along their common input axis by taking the average of their outputs. The same pair can also be employed to extract the angular rate component lying in a plane perpendicular to their common input axis by taking the difference in their outputs; which are affected equally but in opposite directions by the coriolis acceleration caused by the angular rate component. The development of an IMU design based upon this concept is the objective of the Phase I effort.