inertial system

American  

noun

Physics.

1. a frame of reference in which a body remains at rest or moves with constant linear velocity unless acted upon by forces: any frame of reference that moves with constant velocity relative to an inertial system is itself an inertial system.

---

inertial system British  

noun

1. Also called: inertial reference frame.  a frame of reference within which bodies are not accelerated unless acted upon by external forces

---

Etymology

Origin of inertial system

First recorded in 1950–55

Example Sentences

Why don't they just use an inertial system...

From New York Times

For every second of its journey, a high-precision GPS receiver on George’s roof collects the car’s latitude, longitude and elevation ten times over; a motion-tracking inertial system records its yaw, pitch and roll 100 times; and the laser scanner calculates its distance from some 600,000 different points, such as trees, kerbs and buildings.

From Economist

"You just need a few stickers on the overhead panel and then the system has an optical tracking system combined with an inertial system, and it's a very light and very easy to use system."

From Reuters