Design and Fabrication of a Convective 3-DOF Angular Rate Sensor

Abstract

This paper reports the design, simulation and fabrication of a novel MEMS based convective gyroscope which can independently detect three components of angular rate at high sensitivity and low power consumption. The new sensor was designed to match the standard bulk MEMS technology. The highly 3D flow scheme in previous work was successfully integrated together with the in-plane hotwires by MEMS compatible laminated-structures. The cost of sensor will be significantly reduced while the sensitivity of the sensor is enhanced (up to 300% of that reported by the authors in [1]). In measurement application, the 3DOF gyro eliminates the sensor-to-sensor distance and has good characteristics in terms of directivity or cross-sensitivity because the alignment between hotwires and flow channel direction is now determined by photolithography. The sensor also has high shock resistance and prevents fatigue damage.