Balancing of hemispherical resonator gyros by chemical etching

Abstract

A procedure for balancing the four lower harmonics of the mass distribution defect in a fused quartz hemispherical toothless resonator of a hemispherical resonator gyroscope is considered. Chemical etching of unbalanced mass from the surface of a partially immersed resonator is done in accordance with analytically calculated angle of the resonator rotation about the axis of symmetry, inclination and depth of the resonator immersion into a chemical bath, and the time of chemical etching. It is shown that the proposed method significantly reduces the balancing time and labor input as compared with ion plasma etching.