Making vehicles safer with on-board driving safety devices

As calls for greater safety grow louder, vehicles are increasingly coming standard-equipped with driving safety devices such as electronic stability control and rollover protection systems.

Electronic Stability Control

ESC is a system that uses a gyroscopic sensor to detect, as an angular rate, changes in attitude, or direction, of a vehicle slipping sideways, and then applies corrections to straighten the vehicle out.
The United States, Europe, and Japan have all introduced legislation requiring that vehicles be equipped with electronic stability control.

Without ESC

With ESC

As depicted in the illustrations above, yaw is rotational motion around the vertical axis of a vehicle.
ESC systems employ a type of gyroscopic sensor called a “yaw sensor” to detect the angular rate in the yaw direction.

Rollover protection systems

Rollover protection systems use a gyroscopic sensor to detect changes in vehicle attitude due to rollovers as an angular rate and deploy side curtain airbags.

As depicted in the illustrations above, roll is rotational motion around the longitudinal (front to rear) axis of a vehicle.
Rollover protection system are equipped with a type of gyroscopic sensor called a roll rate sensor to detect the angular rate in the roll direction.

Gyro-sensors are thus essential, irreplaceable components in both ESC and rollover protection systems. Calls for greater safety are making driving safety devices such as these standard equipment on many vehicles, leading to a growing demand for gyroscopic sensors that accurately detect changes in vehicle attitude.

Product features

Epson's gyro-sensors provide exceedingly stable angular rate detection even for demanding automotive applications.

1. Stable characteristics even under harsh conditions

Crystal sensing elements with an original hammerhead, or "double-T," structure fabricated using QMEMS^* technology maintain stable operation even at temperatures as high as 125°C, for installation in engine bays.

Excellent vibration resistance and shock survivability thanks to optimized sensing elements and the structure used to support them.

2. High reliability

High reliability ensured by a function that diagnoses failures at any given time and at startup

J-lead pins used for superb joint reliability

AEC-Q100 compliant

*QMEMS is a registered trademark of Epson Toyocom.

Our gyro-sensors not only fulfill all the characteristic requirements essential for automotive devices, they also boast the stability and reliability needed to accurately detect slips, rollovers, and other dangerous vehicle attitude changes as angular rates.

Demonstration of vibration resistance

We conducted tests to determine the degree to which gyro-sensor characteristics are affected by vibrations that mimic those encountered during driving. Please see the comparison demonstration, and see the reason Epson's gyro-sensors are resistance to the effects of vibration.

Types of sensors in the XV-9000 series

	Yaw rate sensor for ESC	Roll rate sensor for rollover protection systems
Rate range	±100 dps	±300 dps
LP package for sensing in the planar (X axis) direction (size: 9.5 x 5.0 x 7.2 mm)	XV-9100LP	XV-9300LP
LV package for sensing in the vertical (Z axis) direction (size 7.2 x 6.8 x 3.3 mm)	XV-9100LV	XV-9300LV

The XV-9000 series consists of four unique models. Choose between a two models with different rate ranges depending on your application and two models that sense different directions.