High performance MEMS gyroscopes

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2007
Azgın, Kıvanç
This thesis reports development of three different high performance, low g-sensitive micromachined gyroscopes having single, double, and quadruple masses. The single mass gyroscope (SMG) is developed for comparison of its performance with the double mass gyroscope (DMG) and quadruple mass gyroscope (QMG). DMG is a tuning fork gyroscope, diminishing the effects of unpredictable g-loadings during regular operation, while QMG is a twin tuning fork gyroscope, developed for a uniform and minimized g-sensitivity. DMG and QMG use novel ring spring connections for merging the masses in drive modes, providing uniform and anti-phase drive mode vibrations that minimize the cross-coupling and the effects of intrinsic and extrinsic accelerations on the scale factor and bias levels of the gyroscopes. The sense mode of each mass of the multi-mass gyroscopes is designed to have higher resonance frequencies than that of the drive mode for possible matching requirements, and these sense modes have dedicated frequency tuning electrodes for frequency matching or tuning. Detailed performance simulations are performed with a very sophisticated computer model using the ARCHITECT software. These gyroscopes are fabricated using a standard SOIMUMPs process of MEMSCAP Inc., which provides capacitive gaps of 2 m and structural layer thickness of 25 m. Die sizes of the fabricated gyroscope chips are 4.1 mm x 4.1 mm for the single mass, 4.1 mm x 8.9 mm for the double mass, and 8.9 mm x 8.9 mm for the quadruple mass gyroscope. Fabricated gyroscopes are tested with dedicated differential readout electronics constructed with discrete components. Drive mode resonance frequencies of these gyroscopes are in a range of 3.4 kHz to 5.1 kHz. Depending on the drive mode mechanics, the drive mode quality (Q) factors of the fabricated gyroscopes are about 300 at atmospheric pressure and reaches to a value of 2500 at a vacuum ambient of 50 mTorr. Resolvable rates of the fabricated gyroscopes at atmospheric pressure are measured to be 0.109 deg/sec, 0.055 deg/sec, and 1.80 deg/sec for SMG, DMG, and QMG, respectively. At vacuum, the respective resolutions of these gyroscopes improve significantly, reaching to 106 deg/hr with the SMG and 780 deg/hr with the QMG, even though discrete readout electronics are used. Acceleration sensitivity measurements at atmosphere reveal that QMG has the lowest bias g-sensitivity and the scale factor g sensitivity of 1.02deg/sec/g and 1.59(mV/(deg/sec))/g, respectively. The performance levels of these multi-mass gyroscopes can be even further improved with high performance integrated capacitive readout electronics and precise sense mode phase matching.

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Citation Formats
K. Azgın, “High performance MEMS gyroscopes,” M.S. - Master of Science, Middle East Technical University, 2007.