gimbal lock.

A condition in which alignment of rotational axes removes an independent rotational degree of freedom in a gimbal system or representation.

Use it for

Words that belong together

• avoid gimbal lock
• a gimbal lock condition

On the page

The controller avoided gimbal lock by changing its orientation representation.

At that alignment, gimbal lock made two axes function alike.

Usage notes

Primary category: sci-fi. Forms: Usually uncountable. Legacy lexical fields mirror sense 1 only. Use numbered sense fields for all meanings.