Design and FEM simulation for a novel resonant silicon MEMS gyroscope with temperature compensation function

Abstract

A kind of resonant silicon micro-electro-mechanical systems (MEMS) gyroscope with self-temperature compensation function is designed to overcome the problem of conventional MEMS gyroscope, whose measuring precision is greatly affected by the temperature effect. Sensitive element of the system is composed of four symmetrically distributed double ended tuning fork (DETFs). They are of the same dimensions. Two of the DETFs which are closing to the proof mass are used to sense the force effect and temperature effect while the other two DETFs are just used to sense the temperature effect. By comparing these two different conditions, the self-temperature compensation model can be deduced. In order to verify the feasibility of the design, finite element method (FEM) is used to compute the performance of system. It is concluded that in the range of −20 to 80 °C, the maximum relative error of the resonant frequency variation is reduced from 16.3 to 3.1%. Simulating result indicates this scheme of design is effective to overcome the temperature effect of this kind of gyroscope.