A novel MEMS S-springs vibrating ring gyroscope with atmosphere package

Abstract

This study presents a new MEMS vibrating ring gyroscope (VRG), which is driven by electrostatic force and detected by capacitance. A novel ring resonator with eight S-shaped symmetrical supporting springs is developed based on the advantageous characteristics of a thin-shell vibrating gyroscope. The capacitance electrodes, including the drive electrodes, the sense electrodes and the mode control electrodes, are designed according to the vibration characteristics of the ring resonator and the shape of the supporting springs. In addition, the operational principle of these electrode capacitors and the electrostatic force of the drive electrodes are discussed in detail. The gyroscope with high aspect-ratio structures is manufactured through an efficient fabrication process. Finally, the performance characteristics of the fabricated VRG are tested, and the experimentally obtained the zero-bias instability is about 0.0167°/s and angle random walk (ARW) is about 0.1363°/s1/2 at room temperature. Experimental results show that the VRG has a simple structure and relatively better performance characteristics for low and medium angular velocity measurements.