A micromachined angle measuring gyroscope using a dual mass architecture measures
angular positions rather than angular rates. The invention decouples the effects
of drive and sense through the use of a dual mass architecture, and is comprised
of a single lumped drive mass, which is structurally coupled to a second lumped
slave mass, where the drive mass is electrostatically driven at the first resonant
frequency the system using parallel plate electrodes. The slave mass is driven
to higher amplitudes than the drive mass. In the presence of rotation, the line
of oscillation in both masses precesses, which is easily detectable in the slave
mass due to the amplified motion, and is exactly equal to the angle of rotation.
The two illustrated embodiments are z-axis realizations of this principle, where
the first device uses an inner drive/outer sense architecture and the second uses
an outer drive/inner sense architecture.