Newsgroups: comp.robotics
Path: brunix!uunet!gatekeeper.us.oracle.com!nic2.barrnet.net!decwrl!adobe!epperson
From: epperson@adobe.com (Mark Epperson)
Subject: Re: A sense of balance
Message-ID: <1993Jan31.222056.4813@adobe.com>
Sender: usenet@adobe.com (USENET NEWS)
Organization: Adobe Systems Incorporated
Date: Sun, 31 Jan 1993 22:20:56 GMT
Lines: 16

nagle@netcom.com (John Nagle) writes:
       "These are all messy mechanically.  The best approach is a sealed
cup of liquid with four capacitive sensing plates.  This gets you 
two axes of balance.  The choice of the liquid is tricky (you want a
medium poise, no foaming, and uniform viscosity over the operating 
temperature range) but worth experimenting with.  Etak, the vehicle
navigation people, used to make these, packaged with a rate gyro, but
I don't know if they still do.  They did considerable work to get the
geometry and liquid characteristics right so that driving on rough
roads wouldn't introduce excessive noise.  "

Do you have more information on how this works?  For example, are there
two sets of opposing plates?  Would you use this in an RC circuit and
count the frequency?

- Mark Epperson
