Gary Sutcliffe wrote:
>
> >
> > I also remember reading in an R/C
> > Modelling magazine (in 1974?) about someone who built a diffrential
> > electrostatic field sensor with electrodes mounted on each wingtip. The
> > sensors picked up the gradient of the earth's electrostatic field. If
> > memory serves, the device was switched in when the plane went into an
> > uncontrolled spin, and would correct it to level flight.
>
> Yes, that was an interesting article.  The electrodes were small
> radioactive sources similar to those used in smoke detectors.  The were
> connected to a differential instrumentation amplifier and gave a voltage
> relative to the angle.
>
> I experimented with the idea for another application.  It was pretty
> sensitive for detecting tilt, but we could not use it for our application.
> >From time to time you would get false readings in the wind. It seemed there
> were small pockets of ionized air that would blow by causing the false signal.
>
> - Gary
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
> Gary Sutcliffe,  W9XT          Unified Microsystems
> ppvvpp@mixcom.com              PO Box 133 Slinger, WI 53086
> http://www.qth.com/w9xt        414-644-9036


I was told about a company that developed a platform that would replace
gyroscopes in image stabilizers for cameras.  The platform, as it was
described to me, has three accelerometers.  I don't know if it's good
for only one axis (probably so--a camera doesn't need as much control as
an aircraft).  According to the guy who told me about this, it was half
the price of the gyroscopic image stabilizer.