Mechanical characteristic of vibratory angular rate gyroscope using MEMS Technology

摘要

A high performance comb-driven vibratory angular rate gyroscope is presented in the paper. The gyroscope uses a rotary electrostatic actuation and differential capacitive sensing. The calculations show a resolution of about 8 deg/hr. The gyroscope is fabricated using MEMS bulk micromachining on a SOI wafer. The high sensitivity of the present design is achieved by employing a large sensing area coupled with a higher layer thickness. Simply increasing the sensor area without increasing the layer thickness may yield a higher sensitivity, but lead to problems such as stiction and lower pull-in voltages. Increasing the suspension stiffness increases the pull-in voltage. However, an increase in suspension stiffness may also increase the natural frequencies which will lower the sensitivity and resolution.