The accuracy of the signal within a driving chain for the rate-integrating hemispherical resonator gyro (RI-HRG) plays a crucial role in the overall performance of the gyro. In this paper, a notable and effective method is proposed to realize the identification and compensation of the unbalanced error in the driving chain for the RI-HRG that improved the performance of the multi-loop control applied in the RI-HRG. Firstly, the assembly inclination and eccentricity error of the hemispherical resonator, the inconsistent metal conductive film layer resistance error of the resonator, the coupling error of the driving chain, and the parameter inconsistency error of the circuit components were considered, and the impact of these errors on the multi-loop control applied in the RI-HRG were analyzed. On this basis, the impact was further summarized as the unbalanced error in the driving chain, which included the unbalanced gain error, equivalent misalignment angle, and unbalanced equivalent misalignment angle error. Then, a model between the unbalanced error in the driving chain and a non-ideal precession angular rate was established, which was applicable to both single channel asynchronous control and dual channel synchronous control of the RI-HRG. Further, an unbalanced error identification and compensation method is proposed by utilizing the RI-HRG output with the virtual precession control. Finally, the effectiveness of the proposed method was verified through simulation and experiments in kind. After error compensation, the zero-bias instability of the RI-HRG was improved from 3.0950°/h to 0.0511°/h. The results of experiments in kind demonstrated that the proposed method can effectively suppress the non-ideal angular rate output caused by the unbalanced error in the driving chain for the RI-HRG, thereby further improving the overall performance of the RI-HRG.
