www.nature.

com/scientificreports

OPEN High sensitivity rate‑integrating

hemispherical resonator gyroscope
with dead area compensation
for damping asymmetry
Wanliang Zhao1,2, Hao Yang2, Fucheng Liu2, Yan Su1* & Chong Li3*
The rate-integrating gyroscope (RIG) operation is considered as the next generation architecture
for hemispherical resonator gyroscopes (HRGs) with advantages of direct angle measurement and
unlimited dynamic range. However, this RIG operation requires high symmetry for the HRG device
and the damping mismatch of the two gyroscopic modes will result in a dead area problem. This work
analyzes the error mechanism of the damping asymmetry induced dead area and proposed a novel
virtual procession compensation method for HRG RIG. The simulation proves the existence of the
dead area as the theory predicted. More importantly, the experimental HRG RIG platform with the
proposed compensation method can significantly expand the dynamic range with accurate angle
measurement and overcome the problem of dead area. The earth rotation is accurate measured which
is the first time that captured by a RIG scheme as a state-of-the-art result.

The hemispherical resonator gyro (HRG) is type of precision inertial sensor that has the advantages of high reli-
ability, long life time cycle and low bias drift ­performance1. It is widely utilized in aerospace applications, defense
technology and advanced i­ndustry2,3. It has a merit of low bias instability (BI) of below 0.001◦/h that enables
the inertial unit measuring the attitude of the carrier accurately with a navigation level ­performance4,5. Though
the HRG shows its admirable BI performance, the advanced applications are expecting it can break through its
bottle neck of limited dynamic range. It’s well known that the HRG is widely used in measuring the attitude of
satellites, not only the advantages that discussed above, but the more important reason is that satellites’ relatively
low dynamics fits the measurable region of HRGs. It’s highly expecting that HRGs can be adopted to more critical
applications with their low BI and high reliability, but the limited dynamic range is the barrier must be overcame.
The conventional way to drive the HRG is named as rate mode. The primary vibration mode is excited at
its resonant frequency and the leaves the sense mode to detect the rotation rate. Under this architecture, the
characteristics of highly symmetry and ultra high quality factor become a double edge sword. On one hand it
effectively improves the signal sensitivity to reach a very low angle rand walk, but on the other hand, it’s sacrific-
ing the dynamic range and b ­ andwidth6. The force-to-rebalance technique used to be a effectively expand the
7
dynamic ­range . It’s using the principle of closed-loop system shaping that applying a control force to maintain
the sense mode ­stationary8. Although FTR has proved its effectiveness and reliability, its total enhancement to
the dynamic range is limited by the stability issue of the closed-loop system.
The rate-integrating gyroscopic (RIG) or namely whole-angle (WA) operation is a novel solution for HRGs
to significantly expand the measurable dynamic range and ­bandwidth9. Unlike the rate mode, the RIG method
is using the free response of the gyro system that considers the two vibration modes e­ qually10. It’s observing the
precession angle in the gyro to determine the external rotation angle to provide angle measurement with unlim-
ited range. This architecture requires highly symmetry of the device to prevent error ­occurs11. This principle can
be applied to all kinds of Coriolis vibratory gyros (CVG), includes micro-electro-mechanical system (MEMS)
­gyros12. Since MEMS gyros tend to be low-cost and batch manufactured, its precision and symmetry are worse
to HRG to be a better candidate for ­RIG13,14. Nevertheless, MEMS gyro and HRG are sharing the same funda-
mental principle, so the HRG RIG gains knowledge to improve its performance, etc. error ­analysis15,16, energy
­control17,18, bias c­ ompensation19, advanced circuit d­ esign20, mode d­ ecoupling21,22 and quadrature c­ ancellation23.

1
Nanjing University of Science and Technology, Nanjing 210094, China. 2Shanghai Aerospace Control Technology
Institute, Shanghai 201200, China. 3Ocean University of China, Qingdao 266100, China. *email: suyan@
njust.edu.cn; [email protected]

Scientific Reports | (2021) 11:2195 | https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-020-80885-y 1

Vol.:(0123456789)
 www.nature.com/scientificreports/

Figure 1.  Degenerated gyroscopic modes of the HRG.

The dead area problem has became increasingly important to HRG RIG, because HRG aims for high-end
applications, which is not reported and investigated yet. More specifically, the sensor output is not responding
to the small changes of angle at certain areas. This measurement inaccuracy will amplify the attitude/positioning
error in the HRG cooperated navigation system.
This study analyzes the principle of the dead area in HRG RIG , proposed a novel self-calibrated method
and induces the state-of-the-art HRG RIG performance. The detailed contributions of this manuscript are sum-
marized as follows:

1. The working principle and error mechanism of HRG RIG is comprehensively presented and analyzed. In
particular, the influence of the damping mismatch and its induced error with dead area problem is analyzed
in depth.
2. A novel, robust and practical architecture with energy control, quadrature elimination and virtual precession
compensation is proposed and implemented for high performance HRG RIG operation. This operation and
calibration architecture can effectively sustain the HRG in the RIG mode and solve the asymmetry errors.
3. Experimentally verified the enhancement of the HRG RIG with a state-of-the-art measurement sensitivity
and dynamic range expansion. The dead area problem is solved by the virtual rotation method with experi-
mental verification and it’s the first time that the earth rotation is detected by the RIG type of gyroscopes.

The remainder of this manuscript gives the detailed theoretical analysis, verification and discussions.

Dynamics analysis of HRG RIG operation

Ideal dynamics of symmetry HRG. The mechanical structures and its two degenerated gyroscopic
modes are shown in Fig. 1, which is typically made by fused-silica or m­ etal24,25. The HRG has a series of advan-
tages include low energy dissipation rate, large signal pickup electrodes and high symmetry to make it an ideal
candidate for precision resonant gyroscope. The n = 2 vibration mode is chosen for the gyroscopic operation.
The equivalent vibration model can be established in Fig. 2a as an ideal symmetric system with 2-degrees-
of-freedom (DOF). The differential equations that describes the :
mẍ + kx = Fx − 2mz ẏ
(1)
mÿ + ky = Fy + 2mz ẋ,

where x and y are the generalized coordinates the two modes (X and Y) of the HRG, m is the proof mass, k is
the stiffness and are equal in the two modes. Fx and Fy are the artificial forces that applied to the HRG,  is the
angular gain that determined by the vibration mode of the mechanical structure design. Specifically, for n = 2
mode that used in the HRG,  = 0.275 would be the case. z is the rotation that the HRG needs to be measured
in the Z axis. The damping terms and cross coupling terms are assumed to be ignored in this ideal situation.
The resonant frequencies of X and Y are the same that described by:

(2)

ω = k/m.
where ω is the resonant frequency.
Unlike a conventional HRG that utilizes the forced response of the 2-DOF vibration system, the RIG mode is
essentially using the free response of (1) without direct interactions of Fx and Fy . The initial conditions x(0), y(0)
must not be zeros to let the free vibration happens. The normalized free response solution of (1) can be obtained
by the method of undetermined coefficients:

Scientific Reports | (2021) 11:2195 | https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-020-80885-y 2

Vol:.(1234567890)
www.nature.com/scientificreports/

Figure 2.  Comparison of (a) ideal HRG model and (b) HRG model with asymmetry components.

Figure 3.  Mass center orbit of the HRG RIG.

  
x(t) = α cos θ0 + �z dt cos(ωt)
   (3)
y(t) = α sin θ0 + �z dt cos(ωt),

where α is the vibration amplitude that depends on the initial condition and α cos(θ0 + �z ) and

α sin(θ0 + �z ) needs to be further processed. Considering the fact that the dynamics of ω is much faster than
z , so they can be divided into ”fast” and ”slow” variables. The slow variables can be extracted by using in-phase/
quadrature (IQ) demodulation method and then calculating the angle:
  
α cos(θ0 + �z dt)

θ0 + �z dt = arc tan  . (4)
α sin(θ0 + �z dt)
The relationship between the precession angle and the external physical rotation rate can be described by:

θ = �z dt, (5)

where θ is the precession angle. and is demonstrated in Fig. 3. θ reflects to the angle rotation in the Z axis instead
 calculated by measuring the amplitude x(t) and y(t) according to (4). It’s feasible to extract
of rate andcan be
x(t) and y(t) through in-phase quadrature (IQ) modulation process.
The principle of RIG can be illustrated in Fig. 3. Normally, the mass center of the HRG is doing a periodical
elliptical motion with a initial precession angle of θ0 and a, b are the major and minor axes. Figure 3b shows
the process of angle precession. Assuming that the HRG is initially at the orbit angle of θ0 = 0 and an external
rotation of total 145◦ is applied to the HRG RIG. The orientation of the vibration wave is following this external
rotation but with a ratio of 0.275 due to the inherent characteristics of the n = 2 mode.

Scientific Reports | (2021) 11:2195 | https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-020-80885-y 3

Vol.:(0123456789)
 www.nature.com/scientificreports/

HRG with asymmetry error factors. However, this promising RIG architecture for HRG can not be
implemented in a straight forward way because the existence of the asymmetry errors which can be described by:
mẍ + cx ẋ + kx x + cyx ẏ + kyx y = Fx − 2mz ẏ
(6)
mÿ + cy ẏ + ky y + cxy ẋ + kxy x = Fy + 2mz ẋ,

where the spring stiffness kx , ky and damping terms are not balanced to each other in real practice because the
imperfection of the materials and fabrication process. Thus, the resonant frequencies of the two modes are no
longer matched:

ωx = kx /m
 (7)
ωy = ky /m.

kxy = kyx and cxy = cyx are the stiffness and damping coupling terms that caused by the azimuth mismatch as
shown in Fig. 2b. The damping and stiffness azimuths are divided from the principal axis of the vibration with
angles of θτ and θω to induce the coupling terms. The HRG system equation can be better described ­by11:
 2
ωx + ωy2
    
1 1 1 1
ẍ + + ẋ + − (ẋ cos(4θτ ) + (ẏ sin(4θτ )) + x
τ1 τ2 τ1 τ2 2
ωx2 + ωy2 Fx
− (x cos(4θω ) + y sin(4θω )) = − 2�z ẏ
2 m  2 (8)
ωx + ωy2
    
1 1 1 1
ÿ + + ẏ − − (−ẋ sin(4θτ ) + (ẏ cos(4θτ )) + y
τ1 τ2 τ1 τ2 2
ωx2 + ωy2 Fy
− (−x sin(4θω ) + y cos(4θω )) = + 2�z ẋ,
2 m
where τ1 and τ2 are the decaying time constants fo x and y. Another set of definitions are used to better analyze
the system:
1 1 1
= −
�τ τ1 τ2
(9)
1
ǫ= ,
2�τ
where ǫ is a new definition for the later analysis.
Observing the established dynamics model, an intuition would be that these asymmetry errors has signifi-
cantly changed the dynamics of the HRG RIG and will lead the measurement errors.

Asymmetry error analysis and calibration techniques

Damping asymmetry induced threshold rotation and dead zone problem. Because the existence
of the damping mismatch terms, the precession angle dynamics is described by
1
θ̇ = −�z − sin(4θ − 4θτ ). (10)
�τ
The solution of (10) will depend on the external input conditions.

26
1. When |�z | < �τ , it can be solved ­as :
1

 �� �2 
�� ǫ
1 ǫ
�2
ǫ 2 �z −1
(11)
 
θ = θτ + a tan  −1+ − �� ,
2  �z �z 2�z 2 ǫ
�2
−1t

�z
1 + c0 e
where c0 is a coefficient that described by:
  2  
ǫ ǫ
�z − 1 + tan 2θ0 − �z
c0 = ln  2   (12)
ǫ ǫ
�z − 1 − tan 2θ0 − �z

As t → ∞, the stead state of (11) would be:

 
�z
θ∞ = θτ − arc sin . (13)
ǫ

Scientific Reports | (2021) 11:2195 | https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-020-80885-y 4

Vol:.(1234567890)
www.nature.com/scientificreports/

Because z is small and the 2nd term in (13) can be approximated as:
θ∞ ≈ θτ , (14)
which indicates that the HRG RIG is not responding to the small rotation rates and a dead area of ± �τ
is 1
conducted.
2. When |�z | > �τ 1
, the solution of the original one described in (10) would be complex. However, its char-
acteristics can be analyzed by the following equation which is obtained through a symbolic computation
tool:
�  �
� �2 � �2
ǫ ǫ
tan(2θ) = 2 1 − tan  −2�z t 1 −
�z �z

(15)

ǫ
tan(2θ0 − 2θτ ) − � z
 ǫ
+a tan � � �2  �z ,
+
ǫ
1 − �z

which indicates that when |�z | >> ǫ , (15) can be further simplified as:
tan(2θ ) = tan(−2�z t + a tan(2θ0 )). (16)
The dynamics of the θ become ideal with a larger input rate z and its dynamic cam be described by:
ǫ2
θ̇ ≈ −�z + . (17)
2�z
Both (15) and (17) indicate that when the input rate is sufficiently large, the non-ideal terms will be cancelled
and the HRG RIG is close to the ideal behavior.

The influence of the existence of damping mismatch can be summarized that it will result in the dead area
problem to limit its performance toward high-end applications, which desires an effective solution.

Dead‑zone calibration with virtual precession. According to the analysis in (eqref), the HRG is blind
to small angle rotations due to the damping miss match conditions. To overcome this problem, a virtual preces-
sion solution is proposed and its basic formula is given as below:
 
θ = θ0 + �z dt + �v dt, (18)

where v is the virtual rotation that generated from the electrical system of the HRG. Thus, the physical angle
z dt then is superposing with this virtual rotation to prevent the break the threshold of the undesired
dead-zone. The physical angle can be recovered by subtracting the known virtual rotation from the observed
precession angle.
Considering feasibility in the engineering practice, the virtual precession rate can be designed as a constant
that v = vir and (18) can be reorganized as:

θ = (�z + �vir )dt. (19)

The electrical Coriolis force that actually generating this virtual precession can be expressed as:
fxv = Ae vir ẏ
(20)
fyv = −Ae vir ẋ,

where fxv and fyv are part of fx and fy as well as other control signals, and Ae is the electrical to force coefficient
that depends on the actual circuit and HRG mechanical properties.

HRG RIG operation architecture with dead area compensation. To implement the dead area cali-
bration technique along with other important control loops, a FPGA based digital system is developed which is
shown in Fig. 4.
The output signal x and y are amplified through the front-end electronics for the further signal processing
blocks. The demodulation is based on the in-phase quadrature (IQ) principle, so Cx , Sx , Cy and Cs are in in-phase
and quadrature components of the two gyroscopic modes. To extract the desired information to support the RIG
operation, the following terms are calculated as:

Scientific Reports | (2021) 11:2195 | https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-020-80885-y 5

Vol.:(0123456789)
 www.nature.com/scientificreports/

Figure 4.  Interface architecture for the HRG RIG.

E = Cx2 + Sx2 + Cy2 + Sy2

Q = Cx Sy − Cy Sx
R = Cx2 + Sx2 − Cy2 − Sy2 (21)
S = 2(Cx Cy − Sx Sy )
L = 2(Cx Sx − Cy Sy ),

where E is the total kinetic energy of the HRG, Q is the quadrature motion, L is used for the drive l­ oop23, R and
S are the parameters that used to calculate the precession angle θ by using the following formula:
 
1 S
θ = a tan . (22)
4 R
The energy E is the fundamental control loop for the RIG operation that it must maintains as a constant level
to neither degraded to the forced response mode nor the motion decays to zero. More specifically, the energy
control is a landmark between rate gyro and rate-integrating gyro because this loop sustains the free vibration
of the HRG without a timing limitation. On the other hand, continuously pumping energy without control
will result in a rate type gyro. The calculated E will go through a PID controller with a set-point EPID and then
redistributed to the two modes:
fxe = EPID cos(2θ ) cos(ωt)
(23)
fye = EPID sin(2θ) cos(ωt),

where EPID is the control effort to sustain the free vibration of the HRG RIG.
The quadrature motion of the gyro needs also to be eliminated by generating a control input QP PID and
allocate this effort to X/Y modes:
fxq = QPID sin(2θ ) sin(ωt)
(24)
fyq = QPID cos(2θ ) sin(ωt),

where QPID is the quadrature cancellation component of the drive signal.

Since the virtual precession is already discussed, so the overall control effort in the based band will be eventu-
ally synthesized based on (20), (23) and (24):
fx = fxe + fxq + fxv = EPID cos(2θ) cos(ωt) + QPID sin(2θ ) sin(ωt) + Ae �vir ẏ
(25)
fy = fye + fyq + fyv = EPID sin(2θ ) cos(ωt) + QPID cos(2θ ) sin(ωt) − Ae �vir ẋ.

L is the indicator for the resonant frequency tracking and it’s a phase lock loop (PLL) type implementation in
this design. The two modes of the HRG can be fine tuned through the electrostatic spring softening effect that
ω = ωx ≈ ωy27 . The generated digital sinusoidal signal is also used to up convert the control signals in (25).

Scientific Reports | (2021) 11:2195 | https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-020-80885-y 6

Vol:.(1234567890)
www.nature.com/scientificreports/

Figure 5.  Comparison of the orbits between rate and RIG mode under a step input of 45◦.

The most important information from the measurement system would be the precession angle measurement
which is described in (22). It’s notable that the measured angle is mixed with the virtual precession angle and the
desired physical angle should be computed as:
    
1 1 S
θp = a tan − �vir dt , (26)
 4 R
where θp is the real physical angle that needs to be measured through the HRG RIG.

Validation
Simulational verification. A set of simulation studies were performed in advance of the experimental
validation, because the simulation can provide more ideal configuration than the real device. In the real prac-
tice, there’s no perfect symmetry HRG devices and so the theoretical differences between conventional rate and
RIG architectures are difficult to be observed. The dead area problem is also expected to be simulated in this
ideal environment before the experimental phase to improve the productivity. The software environment was
MATLAB 2019b and the gyro model was built in the MATLAB SIMULINK toolbox. To assure the reliability
of the simulation study, the simulated HRG had a mode-matched resonant frequency of 5 KHz, nominal Q of
8,000,000, which are close to the typical HRG devices.
The simulation initiated with a perfect symmetry gyro to demonstrate the idea of HRG RIG operation which
is shown in Fig. 5. A step input of 180◦ rotation was applied to the rate/RIG modes of HRG. The results show that
the response in the sense mode had very limited motion as small signals to hurt the signal to noise ratio and acted
as a rate gyro. The orbit angle of RIG mode was responding to the rotation angle as a direct angle measurement
sensor. This comparison also indicates that the RIG architecture also has potential advantage of higher signal to
noise ratio. The conventional rate architecture divide the gyro into the drive mode and sense mode, and continues
pump energy into the primary derive mode while the motion of rate signal modulated sense mode is very small.
This relatively weak signal leads to inherent difficulties to the electronics design to reduce the noise. On the
contrary, the RIG architecture treats the two modes equally and the external input is determined by examining
the total energy distribution on the two modes, so the signal to noise ratio can be maximized.
Then a Q mismatch was introduced to the simulation with a induced dead area threshold of 10◦/h. The devia-
tion of damping axis and the principal axis, θτ , equals 30◦. The input rotation rate-gyro precession rate output
relationship is shown in Fig. 6. The dash line was the ideal gyro input-output function with a slope of 0.275 since
it was using the n = 2 mode. The solid line was generated by solving the differential equation (10) numerically.
It’s obvious that the overall scale factor between input and output was linear, but it was not respond to the small
rotation as the theory predicted.
To better illustrate the existed problem, a set of time domain comparison simulation trajectories was collected
and is shown in Figs. 7 and 8. Constant rotation rates of z = 30◦/h and z = 5◦/h were applied to the HRG
RIG, which were inside/outside of the dead area, where the results are shown in Fig. 7. Even with the damping
asymmetry, the precession angle of the HRG RIG followed the z = 30◦ rotation input normally because this
rate was outside of the dead area. However, the orbit angle barely responded to the z = 5◦ with very limited
angle precession since the the motion of the wave was trapped by the dead area.
To comprehensive discover the problem of dead area, another set of constant rotations were applied to the
gyro and the initial precession angle was same as θτ = 30◦ for the convenience as shown in Fig. 8. When the input
rate was less than the threshold, the gyro precession angle responded deadly slow. Even the maximum rate, 9◦
was nearly reaching the threshold, the total precession angle was no more than 70◦ after a 14 h operation. On the
contrary, when the rotation was in the outside the threshold, the output trajectory worked as an almost ideal gyro
and the slope fitted the input very well. The higher rotation rates up to ± 50◦ /h also proved the desired linearity.
Based on the simulation studies, it can be concluded that the dead area problem do exist in the damping
mismatched HRGs. The input rate that behind/beyond the threshold will result in a big difference in the HRG

Scientific Reports | (2021) 11:2195 | https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-020-80885-y 7

Vol.:(0123456789)
 www.nature.com/scientificreports/

Figure 6.  The dead-zone effect of HRG with damping mismatch.

Figure 7.  Dead area simulation results with input rates larger and smaller than the threshold.

Figure 8.  Time domain responses of HRG with input behind/beyond the dead-zone threshold.

measurements and leaving this unsolved will let HRG RIG stay out of the candidate in the high precision naviga-
tion applications. The further calibration solution and its results is given in the later subsection.

Experimental validation. A customized industrial level HRG platform was developed to evaluated the
proposed solution regarding to the dead area problem to conduct a high performance HRG RIG system. The
experimental setup is shown in Fig. 9. The HRG device was well packaged and sealed to adopt to the environ-
mental variation and prevent the air damping to reduce the Q. The interface electronics had a core of Xilinx
FPGA with high speed digital processing capability to implement the proposed architecture and the precession

Scientific Reports | (2021) 11:2195 | https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-020-80885-y 8

Vol:.(1234567890)
www.nature.com/scientificreports/

Figure 9.  Experimental setup of the HRG RIG.

Figure 10.  Ring down measurement of the two degenerated modes of the HRG.

rate table can provide the accurate rotation input. The generated drive voltage signals were amplified through the
power electronics and conducted the electrostatic forces that can simulate the resonator effectively. The motion
of the device can be detected by monitoring the signal pick-up electrodes. The HRG device was sealed in the
vacuum to retain the low energy dissipation rate. The device and the interface system were mounted on the rate
table so variety of physical rotation can be applied to this sensor.
The basic characterization of this HRG was performed to optimize the performance in the later experiments.
The resonant frequency of the HRG was 4.5 kHz and the mode split of X and Y was less than 0.001 Hz after an
electrostatic tuning through a frequency sweep type measurement. Because the HRG had very large Qs for the
two modes that reached million level, the frequency sweep test can no longer applied because the high Q induced
resonant peaks were too sharp to be accurately captured with limited data points. Thus, a ring down measurement
was applied to get the accurate Qs for the two modes as shown in Fig. 10. Each of X/Y mode was initially excited
at its resonant frequency by using the PLL and then released the control amplitude to zero to let the totally energy
decay. Then the Q of the mode can be calculated by observing the energy decay time. The measured decay times
of X and Y mode were 522s and 520s that represented Qx = 7,800,000 and Qy = 7,340,000. These characteriza-
tions demonstrated that the HRG was in a well tuned condition and well balanced except for the Q mismatch.
As claimed that the RIG architecture can significantly expand the dynamic range of HRG, a comparison was
done between the RIG and conventional rate mode as shown in Fig. 11. The rotation rates were provided by the
precision rate table. In the rate mode, the output signal of the HRG had became saturated when the rotation rate
was greater than 3◦ /s, because it was under the mode match operation principle and the 8 million level high Q
will greatly reduce the dynamic measurement range. On the contrary, the RIG provided a linear dynamic range
of 150◦ /s, which is a remarkable 50x improvement. This improvement was resulted from the inherent advantage
of the RIG architecture that the external rotation will be determined by direct measuring the precession angle.
The nonlinearity of the scale factor of the HRG RIG is less than 0.1% according to the fit result. This significant
improvement can broaden the market of the HRG from limited aerospace to other advanced industrial or defense
applications with high rotation dynamics.
Another “step response” rotation test was proceeded to verify the bias stability of the HRG with the proposed
interface architecture, which is shown in Fig. 12. The rate table applied different rates (±50◦ /s , ±100◦ /s and

Scientific Reports | (2021) 11:2195 | https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-020-80885-y 9

Vol.:(0123456789)
 www.nature.com/scientificreports/

Figure 11.  Dynamic range comparison of the conventional rate mode and RIG of the HRG.

Figure 12.  Step responses of the HRG RIG with different rotations.

±150◦ /s,) as steps to the gyro and stayed steady for about 50s for each step. For MEMS based RIG operations,
it’s very hard to retain the output level with a constant angle but will drift to the principle axis with lower damp-
ing ratio instead. For the case with the proposed architecture with HRG, the angle output maintained its level
without any obvious drifting when the rate table stopped. It fully proved the functionality and effectiveness of
the architecture and it’s the first research showing the stable steady state performance for a HRG.
The dead area compensation problem was verified through measuring the earth rotation. It’s well known
that the earth is rotating with a rate of 7.5◦ /h as a small rate, which is inside the dead area of the HRG RIG. The
experiment was utilizing this small earth rotation as the arbitrary input for a flip-over comparison. The HRG
z-axis was pointing to the zenith in this first round for 50 h and then heading to the nadirz which is a up-side-
down situation, where the two rounds were running with the virtual rotation rate of 1860◦ /h. So the output of 1st
measurement was the virtual rotation plus the earth rotation and the 2nd one would be the virtual rate minus the
earth rotation. If the two measurements were doing the difference, a difference of 2 × 7.5◦ /h × 0.275 = 4.125◦ /h
should be obtained. Fig. 13 demonstrates these two tests that by doing the difference, a rotation rate of 4.2◦ /h
was captured by the differential type of comparison. It successfully proved that the dead area problem is solved
by the proposed architecture and it’s the first time that CVG RIG has been able to measure the earth rotation
as a state-of-the-art result. In contrast, the difference of these two configurations presented a zero output when
the virtual rotation was turned off, which further proved the principle of the damping asymmetry induced dead
area error and the effectiveness of the proposed method.

Conclusion
The operation principle and error mechanism of HRG RIG with damping/Q asymmetry and the compensation
method is comprehensively investigated in this work. When the input physical rotation is smaller than the Q
mismatch induced dead area threshold, the HRG RIG is deadly respond to it. Thus, a virtual electrical preces-
sion can be applied to break through this barrier to provide precise angle measurement. The experiments proves
that the HRG RIG with this solution can significantly expand the measurement dynamic range and captured the

Scientific Reports | (2021) 11:2195 | https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-020-80885-y 10

Vol:.(1234567890)
www.nature.com/scientificreports/

Figure 13.  Dead area compensation verification experiment by using the earth rotation.

earth rotation as a state-of-the-art result. The suggested future work would be further explore and optimize the
error mechanisms of HRG RIG and this work can be adopted to MEMS RIG.

Received: 9 May 2020; Accepted: 16 December 2020

References
1. Wei, Z., Yi, G., Huo, Y., Qi, Z. & Xu, Z. The synthesis model of flat-electrode hemispherical resonator gyro. Sensors 19, 1690 (2019).
2. Rozelle, D. M., Meyer, A. D., Trusov, A. A. & Sakaida, D. K. Milli-hrg inertial sensor assembly—a reality. In 2015 IEEE International
Symposium on Inertial Sensors and Systems (ISISS) (2015).
3. Meyer, D. & Rozelle, D. Milli-HRG inertial navigation system. Gyrosc. Navig. 2012;3:227-34.
4. Wang, X. et al. Temperature drift compensation for hemispherical resonator gyro based on natural frequency. Sensors 12, 6434–6446
(2012).
5. Yeh, T., Huang, T., Tanaka, T. & Yen, T. Demonstration of a three-dimensional negative index medium operated at multiple-angle
incidences by monolithic metallic hemispherical shells. Scientific Reports 7, 45549–45549 (2017).
6. Wang, X., Xue, J. & Wang, Q. The error analysis of hemispherical resonator gyro based on a vibration model. In 2017 IEEE 2nd
Advanced Information Technology, Electronic and Automation Control Conference (IAEAC), 2158–2162 (2017).
7. Jin, J. K. D. Force-to-rebalance mode of a resonator gyro and angular rate measurement tests. J. Inst. Control 20, 563–569 (2014).
8. Qiu, B., Wang, J. & Li, P. Full digital control of hemispherical resonator gyro under force-to-rebalance mode. IEEE Sens. J. 15,
71–75 (2015).
9. Rozelle, D. M. The hemispherical resonator gyro: From wineglass to the planets. 19th AAS AIAA Space Flight Mechanics Meeting,
Vol 134, 1157–1178 (2013).
10. Friedland, B. & Hutton, M. Theory and error analysis of vibrating-member gyroscope. IEEE Trans. Autom. Control 23, 545–556
(1978).
11. Lynch, D. D. & Lynch, D. Vibratory gyro analysis by the method of averaging. Proceedings of the 2nd St. Petersburg Conference on
Gyroscopic Technology and Navigation (1995).
12. Prikhodko, I. P., Zotov, S. A., Trusov, A. A. & Shkel, A. M. Foucault pendulum on a chip: Rate integrating silicon mems gyroscope.
Sens. Actuators A Phys. 177, 67–78 (2012).
13. Cui, M., Huang, Y., Wang, W. & Cao, H. Mems gyroscope temperature compensation based on drive mode vibration characteristic
control. Micromachines 10, 248. https​://doi.org/10.3390/mi100​40248​ (2019).
14. Lee, J., Yun, S. & Rhim, J. Design and verification of a digital controller for a 2-piece hemispherical resonator gyroscope. Sensors
16, 555. https​://doi.org/10.3390/s1604​0555 (2016).
15. Ruan, Z., Ding, X., Qin, Z., Jia, J. & Li, H. Automatic mode-matching method for mems disk resonator gyroscopes based on virtual
coriolis force. Micromachines 11, 210. https​://doi.org/10.3390/mi110​20210​ (2020).
16. Xiao, P. et al. Influence of temperature variation on the vibrational characteristics of fused silica cylindrical resonators for coriolis
vibratory gyroscopes. Sensors 20, 1032. https​://doi.org/10.3390/s2004​1032 (2020).
17. Gregory, J. A., Cho, J. & Najafi, K. Mems rate and rate-integrating gyroscope control with commercial software defined radio
hardware. In 2011 16th International Solid-State Sensors, Actuators and Microsystems Conference, 2394–2397 (2011).
18. Ma, T., Cao, H. & Shen, C. A temperature error parallel processing model for mems gyroscope based on a novel fusion algorithm.
Electronics 9, 499. https​://doi.org/10.3390/elect​ronic​s9030​499 (2020).
19. Taheri-Tehrani, P., Challoner, A. D. & Horsley, D. A. Micromechanical rate integrating gyroscope with angle-dependent bias
compensation using a self-precession method. IEEE Sens. J. 18, 3533–3543 (2018).
20. Wang, Y. et al. A digital closed-loop sense mems disk resonator gyroscope circuit design based on integrated analog front-end.
Sensors 20, 687. https​://doi.org/10.3390/s2003​0687 (2020).
21. Cui, J., Zhao, Q. & Yan, G. Effective bias warm-up time reduction for mems gyroscopes based on active suppression of the coupling
stiffness. Microsyst. Nanoeng. 5, 18 (2019).
22. Serrano, D. E. et al. Substrate-decoupled, bulk-acoustic wave gyroscopes: Design and evaluation of next-generation environmentally
robust devices. Microsyst. Nanoeng. 2, 16015 (2016).
23. Gregory, J. A., Cho, J. & Najafi, K. Novel mismatch compensation methods for rate-integrating gyroscopes. In Proceedings of the
2012 IEEE/ION Position, Location and Navigation Symposium, √ 252–258 (2012).
24. Singh, S., Woo, J., He, G., Cho, J. Y. & Najafi, K. 0.0062 ◦ / hr angle random walk and 0.027 ◦ /hr bias instability from a micro-shell
resonator gyroscope with surface electrodes. In 2020 IEEE 33rd International Conference on Micro Electro Mechanical Systems
(MEMS), 737–740 (2020).

Scientific Reports | (2021) 11:2195 | https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-020-80885-y 11

Vol.:(0123456789)
 www.nature.com/scientificreports/

25. Basarab, M. A., Lunin, B. S., Matveev, V. A. & Chumankin, E. A. Balancing of hemispherical resonator gyros by chemical etching.
Gyrosc. Navig. 6, 218–223 (2015).
26. Prikhodko, I. P., Gregory, J. A., Bugrov, D. I. & Judy, M. W. Overcoming limitations of rate integrating gyroscopes by virtual rota-
tion. In 2016 IEEE International Symposium on Inertial Sensors and Systems, 5–8 (2016).
27. Wen, H., Daruwalla, A. & Ayazi, F. Resonant pitch and roll silicon gyroscopes with sub-micron-gap slanted electrodes: Breaking
the barrier toward high-performance monolithic inertial measurement units. Microsyst. Nanoeng. 3, 16092 (2017).

Acknowledgements
This work is partially sponsored by Program of Shanghai Academic/Technology Research Leader under Project
18XD1421700, China Postdoctoral Science Foundation under grant 2020M672145 and Fundamental Research
Funds for the Central Universities of Ocean University of China under Grant 201962012.

Author contributions
W.Z., H.Y. and C.L. wrote the main manuscript text, H.Y. and F.L. did the experiments, W.Z. and Y.S. did the
formal analysis, and W.Z. and C.L. did the theoretical analysis and investigation. All authors reviewed the
manuscript.

Competing interests
The authors declare no competing interests.

Additional information
Correspondence and requests for materials should be addressed to Y.S. or C.L.
Reprints and permissions information is available at www.nature.com/reprints.
Publisher’s note Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and
institutional affiliations.
Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International
License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or
format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the
Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this
article are included in the article’s Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the
material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not
permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from
the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creat​iveco​mmons​.org/licen​ses/by/4.0/.

© The Author(s) 2021

Scientific Reports | (2021) 11:2195 | https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-020-80885-y 12

Vol:.(1234567890)