Exploring the Potential of MEMS Gyroscopes: Successfully Using Sensors in Typical Industrial Motion Control Applications

Since their conception in the 1990s, MEMS gyroscopes have gained increasing popularity over traditional mechanical or optical gyroscopes because of their innate features such as low cost, reduced size, and low power requirements. Market acceptance has grown over the years, thanks to the constant efforts spent by manufacturers in improving key features such as performance, reliability, and cost of the single device. Recently, MEMS gyroscopes have begun to be applied in several automotive, industrial, and consumer electronics applications either as replacements of older, bulkier, and more expensive sensors or as essential components in new applications that require compact, inexpensive solutions for the measurement of the angular rate. Typical motion control applications, such as the stabilization of inertial platforms, the active damping of undesired vibrations, or the motion reconstruction, can undoubtedly benefit from the usage of MEMS gyroscopes. The two motion control applications presented in this article portray, with the support of real experimental data, some of these benefits. Hopefully this article has provided sufficient motivations to the interested reader to further explore the potentials of MEMS gyroscopes and to start planning how to successfully apply them in existing or innovative motion control applications.