Abstract
This paper presents the design and application of a lever coupling mechanism to improve the shock resistance of a dual-mass silicon micro-gyroscope with drive mode coupled along the driving direction without sacrificing the mechanical sensitivity. Firstly, the mechanical sensitivity and the shock response of the micro-gyroscope are theoretically analyzed. In the mechanical design, a novel lever coupling mechanism is proposed to change the modal order and to improve the frequency separation. The micro-gyroscope with the lever coupling mechanism optimizes the drive mode order, increasing the in-phase mode frequency to be much larger than the anti-phase one. Shock analysis results show that the micro-gyroscope structure with the designed lever coupling mechanism can notably reduce the magnitudes of the shock response and cut down the stress produced in the shock process compared with the traditional elastic coupled one. Simulations reveal that the shock resistance along the drive direction is greatly increased. Consequently, the lever coupling mechanism can change the gyroscope’s modal order and improve the frequency separation by structurally offering a higher stiffness difference ratio. The shock resistance along the driving direction is tremendously enhanced without loss of the mechanical sensitivity.
Highlights
With the development of MEMS technology, the performances of MEMS devices are greatly improved, and the sensors are widely used in various fields.For many applications, such as in military and aerospace applications, the sensors have to perform with a high degree of stability, and have to withstand a higher level of shock
For the MEMS gyroscope with a good linearity, the mode superposition method can be used for the simplified analysis
The simulation results demonstrate that the lever coupling mechanism can significantly improve the shock resistance of the dual-mass silicon micro-gyroscope with drive mode coupled
Summary
With the development of MEMS (microelectromechanical systems) technology, the performances of MEMS devices are greatly improved, and the sensors are widely used in various fields. The experimental results show that the MEMS device designed by these principles can survive a 500 g (gravity acceleration) shock test This method improves the anti-shock performance slightly [5]. Shock tests showed that accelerometers with flexible stoppers could resist more than 10,000 g shock with about a 100-μs pulse width, while the double-cascaded stopper was more robust to high-frequency shocks These stoppers may only provide marginal protection because they themselves may produce secondary impact sources (such as subsequent shocks) that may cause fracture, debris and performance shifts in the device [18]. For a dual-mass silicon micro-gyroscope, a useful method is to raise the in-phase mode frequency, which can further improve its shock resistance.
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