mHRG: Miniature CVG with Beyond Navigation

Grade Performance and Real Time Self-Calibration

A. A. Trusov, M. R. Phillips, A. Bettadapura, G. Atikyan, G. H. McCammon,

J. M. Pavell, Y. A. Choi, D. K. Sakaida, D. M. Rozelle, A. D. Meyer
Northrop Grumman Systems Corporation, Woodland Hills, CA, USA

Abstract—This paper reports two new milestones in the

development of miniaturized Coriolis Vibratory Gyroscopes
(CVG) with beyond navigation grade performance. Firstly, a
small size and low parts count milli-Hemispherical Resonator
Gyroscope (mHRG) based on a drastically simplified production
unit is demonstrated with measured 0.00025 deg/rt-hr ARW and
0.005 deg/hr bias. Secondly, real time self-calibration is validated
using a dual mHRG system achieving strategic grade stability of
0.001 deg/hr over days of time and over temperature. We believe
results of this work provide a valuable state of the art reference
to both the inertial and MEMS communities pursuing next
generation CVG architectures, designs, and self-calibration.

Keywords— Gyroscope, navigation grade, strategic grade, self-

calibration, HRG, mHRG, Coriolis Vibratory Gyroscope, CVG

I. INTRODUCTION
Electrostatically transduced CVGs are uniquely suited for
high reliability, low cost manufacturing and provide several
inherent advantages over other available technologies.
Compared to legacy optical (RLG, FOG) and spinning mass
(DTG, ESG) instruments, the CVG physics package has a
uniquely simple construction with single digit number of parts
and no self-limiting wear out mechanisms (no plasma, dither
motor, light sources, high voltage, bearings, etc.). While the
Angle Random Walk (ARW) of optical gyros is fundamentally
limited by quantum effects, ARW of CVGs is limited by
Brownian motion which allows orders of magnitude better
performance in the same Size Weight and Power (SWaP) using
low dissipation resonators. The reliability and low noise are
exemplified by Northrop Grumman’s Hemispherical Resonator
Gyroscope (HRG) with demonstrated 100 percent mission
success in more than 30 million on-orbit hours and 147 billion
miles traveled (MESSENGER aircraft alone). With a physics
package not larger than a couple of inches on the side,
production quoted specification is ARW <0.00015 deg/rt-hr
and bias <0.0015 deg/hr [1] with typical measured
performance of 20 µdeg/rt-hr and 0.0001 deg/hr [2].
The favorable ARW scaling of CVGs enables in principle
centimeter scale instruments with beyond navigation grade
noise performance. However, all CVGs are essentially analog
Amplitude Modulated (AM) systems with inherently limited
dynamic range, bias stability, and scale factor stability.
Unleashing the full low noise and low SWaP and cost potential
of CVGs for true free inertial applications is highly attractive
and requires revolutionary solutions.
1.2 inch
Fig. 1. Photograph of the main mHRG parts showing a 30 mm diameter
resonator and inner electrode assembly. Four pairs of opposing electrodes are
designated as: anti-node forcer and pickoff, node forcer and pickoff. The
resonator, shown prior to metallization, is DC bias for forcing and pickoff.
This decade has seen an aggressive pursuit of miniaturized
mode symmetric CVGs capable of whole angle and self-
calibration, championed by the DARPA MRIG and PASCAL
programs with participation from leading academic,
government, and industry entities. The macro-scale
Hemispherical Resonator Gyroscope (HRG) is generally
recognized as the role model for these developments and is
often relied upon as a reference guide for CVG technology.
However, considerable confusion exists in the community’s
understanding of the current HRG technology. This paper
addresses the gap by reporting the latest status of the internal
research and development funded 3 cubic inches mHRG with
beyond navigation grade performance and real time self-
calibration, Fig. 1.
II. MHRG INSTRUMENT
The mHRG instrument design was created by drastically
simplifying the current production 130P HRG used in space
systems. To minimize the development risk, the mHRG uses
the same ultra-low dissipation and noise quartz resonator with
30 mm diameter and 4 kHz nominal resonance frequency. The
significant size reduction and design simplifications were

978-1-4673-6939-8/16/$31.00 ©2016 IEEE


Fig. 2. Photograph of all mHRG physics package parts, comprising vacuum
package with getters, resonator, electrode assembly, and analog buffer card
with cover.
Fig. 3. Photograph of the experimental system showing two independent
mHRG gyro strings in a collinear sensor block. Not shown is a mission
software PC running the self-calibration sequencer, Kalman filter, and data
collection.
realized through the elimination of the outer 130P forcer
electrode array which is external to the resonator and by
sharing the inner electrodes between the pickoff and forcer
functions. The new design, Fig. 2, has reduced the number of
components by over a factor of 10, which translates into a
commensurate reduction of complexity and cost.
A family of mHRGs was successfully built and extensively
tested as resonators, individual gyroscopes, and continuously
self-calibrating gyroscope systems. The sensors were
instrumented using developmental Coriolis Vibratory (CVG)
digital electronics and classic Lynch controls [3, 4] with 4 non-
differential AC signals at the flex frequency (anti-node forcing
and pickoff, node forcing and pickoff) and a DC resonator bias
voltage. Fig. 3 shows a typical test configuration comprising
two separate gyro strings. The digital CVG cards run
individual gyro operation and control using a DSP program,
FPGA signal routing firmware, and CODEC based ADC and
DAC interfaces. The electronics are custom designs with all
commercial off the shelf parts. The size of the boards is not
representative of the final configuration due to the multiple
redundant features included for research and development
purposes.
tConstant
1220
1200
1180
1160
1140
0 45 90 135 180 225 270 315 360
Fig. 4. Time constant in seconds versus pattern angle in degrees measured on
a typical mHRG using developmental CVG electronics. Average time
constant on the order of 1,200 s corresponds to the quality factor of 15 M.
Fig. 5. Resonant frequency in Hz versus pattern angle in degrees measured
on a typical mHRG using developmental CVG electronics. Observable
frequency split is on the order of 1 mHz.
Fig. 6. Baseline mHRG performance without self-calibration in constant
uncontrolled temperature with measured 0.00025 deg/rt-hr ARW and
0.005 deg/hr bias (both limited by the proof of concept CVG electronics).
III. MHRG BASELINE PERFORMANCE
Ringdown time constant magnitude and uniformity over
pattern angle as well as resonant frequency uniformity over
pattern angle are well known CVG figures of merit [3, 4]. Fig.
4 illustrates a typical time constant measurement versus pattern
angle using mHRG with the CVG electronics mechanization
described above. The average value is on the order of 1,200
seconds or 20 minutes, which corresponds to the quality factor
of 15 million for the 4 kHz frequency. Raw variation of the
time constant on the order of 10 seconds translates into a very
low Δ(1/tau) figure of merit on the order of 10 micro-Hz.
Characterization of frequency over pattern angle is shown in
Fig. 5 with typical raw variation on the order of 1 mHz due to
the very high degree of modal symmetry in the resonator.

Fig. 7. Allan deviation of the raw and self-calibrated biases using different
self-calibration periods. Numerical simulation uses AWN of 0.1 arcsec/rt-Hz,
ARW of 0.00025 deg/rt-hr, bias of 0.005 deg/hr, RRW of 0.01 deg/hr/rt-hr,
and Ramp of 0.001 deg/hr/hr. Self-calibration based on 4 min period achieves
0.001 deg/hr at the time frame of hours.
After the checkout, integration with electronics, and basic
testing, the family of fabricated mHRG units was extensively
characterized in a rate table lab. Typical Allan deviation
performance without active temperature stabilization is shown
in Fig. 6. Utilizing the non-differential CVG mechanization
with all control loops working at the gyro drive frequency,
measured baseline performance is better than navigation grade
with 0.00025 deg/rt-hr ARW and 0.005 deg/hr bias.
IV. SELF-CALIBRATION APPROACH
Mode symmetric or Class II CVGs have advantageous
properties that allow identification and removal of bias and
scale factor errors through mode reversal and pattern angle
slewing. Bias is a periodic function of the second harmonic of
the electrical pattern angle, with coefficients governed by the
damping and stiffness asymmetry. Moving the pattern angle by
90 electrical degrees, i.e. “mode reversing” the gyro, results in
a bias with the same magnitude but opposite polarity. In
principal, this idea can be used on a single gyro to separate a
constant bias from an unknown constant inertial rate, such as
the Earth’s rate projection onto a gyro with unknown
orientation. Similar to correlated double sampling, self-
calibration estimates the bias over a self-calibration period T as
a difference between average outputs of the two modes over
the T/2 time span each. This estimate is then subtracted from
the gyro output until the next self-calibration update. Fig. 7
shows Allan deviation of the numerically simulated raw and
self-calibrated mHRG bias using 4 and 1 minute self-
calibration periods. The simulated gyro has AWN of
0.1 arcsec/rt-Hz, ARW of 0.00025 deg/rt-hr, bias of
0.005 deg/hr, RRW of 0.01 deg/hr/rt-hr, and Ramp of
0.001 deg/hr/hr. Analysis demonstrates that self-calibration
preserves the AWN and ARW and rejects lower frequency
instability and drifts. For a practical period of 4 minutes, the
simulation shows stability of 0.001 deg/hr for the time scale of
hours, with further convergence down to 0.0001 deg/hr and
below at longer time scales.
While the single gyro self-calibration model described
above is useful for fundamental analysis and performance
projections, several gaps have to be overcome to realize a
practical self-calibrated system with uninterrupted delta-theta
Fig. 8. Block diagram of the two collinear gyro self-calibrating system.
Mission software comprises a mode-reversal sequencer and a Kalman filter
that outputs continuous stream of drift free rate measurements [5].
Fig. 9. Illustration of the sequencer which enables full observability of
inertial rate and gyro biases [5].
output and operation over dynamic input. Such system can be
devised using an additional gyro (second gyro for a single axis
system or fourth gyro for a three axes system). The single axis
system in the scope of this work comprises two collinear gyros,
a state machine sequencer, and a Kalman filter, Fig. 8. The
state machine illustrated in Fig. 9 enables uninterrupted
measurements of dynamic inertial rate and makes biases of
both gyros along with the difference between the two gyros
scale factors observable by the self-calibration Kalman filter.
V. SELF-CALIBRATION RESULTS
The principle of bias self-calibration using a single HRG
has been previously demonstrated using post processing [6]
and more recently with a real time dual HRG system [7]. In
this work, real time self-calibration of bias and scale factor is
demonstrated using the new simplified mHRG physics
packages. The mission software including the mode reversal
state machine sequencer, the Kalman filter, data collection, and
GUI was implemented and executed in real time on a standard
Windows PC. Each individual gyro string of the dual gyro
system comprises a digital CVG control card, an analog buffer
card, and a mHRG physics package, Fig. 3.
The developed real time self-calibration system was
extensively tested on a rate table under several different
thermal conditions, including uncontrolled temperature,
30 deg C controlled temperature, and 40 deg C controlled
temperature. In all of the experiments, the complete gyro
system including all electronics, not just the physics packages,
were expose to the temperature environment. No thermal
modeling was used, with the raw gyro output fed directly into
the self-calibration mission software. Allan deviation analysis
of the self-calibrate output is shown in Fig. 10 and
demonstrates achievement of better than 0.001 deg/hr stability
at the time scale of hours. No instability floor or drift is
observable in any of the curves, including the concatenated
30 deg C and 40 deg C data.
Self-calibration performance over temperature was further
analyzed in time domain and compared to raw outputs of the
two gyros during the same experiments, Fig. 11. As expected,
Fig. 11. Demonstration of dual mHRG self-calibration system showing Allan (a) First gyro individual raw output.
deviation convergence down to strategic grade stability of <0.001 deg/hr at the
time scale of hours (limited by the experiment duration).

the self-calibration system output across both temperatures

shows no drift or temperature dependency and zero mean
(Earth’s rate subtracted for clarity). In contrast, individual gyro
outputs show levels of initial bias as well as bias sensitivity to
temperature and slow trends. While the measured raw
performance is largely limited by the developmental CVG
electronics and its sensitivities, the real time self-calibration
system completely eliminates all observable errors independent
of whether they are caused by the physics package or by the
electronics mechanization.
VI. CONCLUSIONS
(b) Second gyro individual raw output.
This paper reports mHRG – a new miniature CVG with
demonstrated beyond navigation grade baseline and near
strategic grade self-calibration performance. The mHRG
architecture and mechanization are archetypical of all mode
symmetric CVGs, including microscale wineglasses, cylinders,
disks, and Quad Mass Gyro (QMG). The self-calibration
system is software defined in the sense that it is agnostic to the
physics package implementation and is applicable to any mode
symmetric CVG. Results of this work are therefore also
expected to highlight a path for next generation systems using
batch manufactured MEMS gyros.
ACKNOWLEDGMENT
The authors thank their colleagues who helped with the
work, especially R. C. Griffith and P. R. Clark for the
electronics design, M. D. Bulatowicz for mechanical design, (c) Real time self-calibraion output.
and M. C. Spencer and G. Levin for gyro tests.
Fig. 10. Time domain illustration of dual mHRG self-calibration over a
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