What's the Point of the "Gyro"?

[mattroman246]

i think the real question is how long did steve jobs practice jenga?

 

[jtara]

Here's one application: I imagine it will be possible to use it in navigation apps to estimate location in-between GPS readings, improving accuracy over just last-course-and-speed.

 

[kdarling]

It's going to be AWESOME for pilots as a backup attitude indicator/EFIS display.

I'm not a gyro expert, but I think you'd quickly end up in a death spiral.

Inexpensive electronic gyros drift very rapidly. They're great for measuring short term changes (as in a game), but useless for your purpose.

I suppose someone could make it work for ten or twenty seconds by using additional info from the accelerometer and compass, but that's probably it.

Regards.

 

[Geckotek]

I love gyros

They're tasty....I'm getting hungry.

 

[zeeflyboy]

It's not really a mechanical gyro. Solid state electronics have supplanted the mechanical gyros of yesteryear (not an unusual evolution). But the term gyro is still used to describe today's modern, no moving parts, angular accelerometers.

The advantages are much smaller, much more reliable (fewer moving parts), much smaller and no precession - a winner all around. But traditionally this hardware has been expensive and has used complex laser courses, to get it down to consumer grade pricing as a secondary function to a PHONE is amazing!

To the latter bit, not really that amazing... it's not like they are using a scaled down ring laser gyro (such as you referred to with the expensive laser part)!

Cheap piezo gyro's (which I imagine is the type they are using) have been around for quite some time.... small cheap and yet very effective ones are easy to come by for R/C Helicopters. If they are using something like MEMS then that's more of an achievement cost wise but even those aren't particularly expensive these days.

 

[Jaro65]

Discussion of this topic is making me hungry.

I am also thinking of a yummy gyro!

 

[wesk702]

I love gyros

tzatziki... i think that's how u spell it. damn the only place i can get one right now that's open is half way to LA or freakin Primm.

 

[BeyondtheTech]

So much better than an accelerometer.

 

[MozMan68]

mmmmmm....need to find a shop around here for lunch today....

 

[TruckdriverSean]

Oh, and if you took that part of the post seriously, then ask for pics of the V2 while you're at it.

XD XD XD

Ok, I'll admit it, I was tempted to take the bait and ask if you actually participated in disassembling a V2.

I lol'd

 

[Carnivor]

this sums it up perfectly and is completely non related to iphones!!

The difference between gyroscope and accelerometer is that the former can sense rotation, the latter cannot. A 3 axis accelerometer has the ability to gauge the orientation of a stationary platform relative to the earth’s surface. If the platform happens to be in free fall, the acceleration will be shown to be zero. If it is only accelerating in a particular direction the acceleration will be indistinguishable from the acceleration being provided by the earth’s gravitational pull. So an accelerometer alone cannot be used to have an aircraft maintain a particular orientation.

A gyroscope on the other hand has the capability of measuring the rate of rotation around a particular axis. For instance if a gyroscope is used to gauge the rate of rotation around the roll axis of an aircraft, it will come up with a non zero roll value, so long as the aircraft continues to roll, but shows zero if the roll stops.

an excerpt from: http://www.differencebetween.net/technology/difference-between-gyroscope-and-accelerometer/