Gyroscope

The VEX Yaw Rate Gyroscope returns the rate of rotation around the vertical axis.

The Gyroscope is no longer sold on the VEX storefront. Check out the V5 Inertial Sensor (IMU) for the most up to date sensor carried by VEX.

The VEX Yaw Rate Gyroscope, or simply the VEX Gyro, is an analog gyroscope which returns a voltage between 0 and +5 V approximately proportional to the rate of rotation around the vertical axis through the sensor. The sensor can detect a rotation of up to +/- 1000 degrees per second. While the Yaw Rate Gyroscope is acceptable for coarse positioning, use of a digital gyroscope may lead to more precise readings. When powered, the Yaw Rate Gyroscope becomes illuminated by a bright green light, which can be seen next to the "PWR" marking.

In VEXCode, the Yaw Rate Gyroscope returns the angle of rotation in degrees. However, in PROS, the Yaw Rate Gyroscope returns the angle of rotation in decidegrees (tenths of a degree). This means that rather than receiving a reading of 360 degrees, it will return 3600 decidegrees instead. Additionally, the sensor measures heading from -3600 decidegrees to 3600 decidegrees. This differs from how the V5 Inertial Sensor works when measuring heading, since it only has a range from 0 degrees to 360 degrees.

The VEX Yaw Rate Gyroscope is highly vulnerable to Line Noise and should be shielded or placed far from motors. All gyroscopes must be placed at the robot's center of rotation for optimal results. Dynamic calibration is therefore a must before each run.

Teams Contributed to this Article:

  • BLRS (Purdue SIGBots)

  • 904U (B.E.S.T.I.E. Robotics)

Last updated

Logo

This work is licensed under a Attribution-ShareAlike 2.0 Generic License