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Many types of inertial instruments have been invented in the past, are currently being invented, and will continue to be invented as the market for guidance, navigation, and control continues to expand. Some of the inertial instruments have found a niche in current applications, while some did not progress much beyond the laboratory/prototype stage. This will be true of future developments also. This paper begins by describing gyroscope and accelerometer technologies that dominate the current market (e.g., strategic, aviation, space, tactical) and explains, in terms of performance and technology, why they have been successful. It is clear from this section that electromechanical and ring laser technologies control the current market. However, since accuracy requirements can be attained by existing technologies, the competition to insert the new technologies into the current applications is driven by the desire for low life-cycle cost, small size, and low production cost. Thus, the success of future instruments will be driven by technologies that enable lower cost, highly reliable instruments. This paper then describes what technologies are currently displacing the existing instruments and what technologies are expected to dominate in the future. Also, the potential new applications and markets that will open up because of the batch processing and low cost of solidstate/microfabricated instruments are described. It becomes apparent that electromechanical instruments will be rapidly displaced over the next 20 years, surviving only where unique performance cannot be matched, and that because of the fierce competition in the solid-state arena, the key to success will depend on system architecture and market timeliness.