Design, Fabrication, Static Test and Uncertainty Analysis of a Resonant Microaccelerometer Using Laterally-driven Electrostatic Microactuator

Abstract

This paper investigates a resonant microaccelerometer that measures acceleration using a built-in micromechanical resonator, whose resonant frequency is changed by the acceleration-induced axial force. A set of design equations for the resonant microaccelerometer has been developed, including analytic formulae for resonant frequency, sensitivity, nonlinearity and maximum stress. On this basis, the sizes of the accelerometer are designed for the sensitivity of 10Hz/g in the detection range of 5g, while satisfying the conditions for the maximum nonlinearity of 5%, the minimum shock endurance of 100g and the size constraints placed by microfabrication process. A set of the resonant accelerometers has been fabricated by the combined use of bulk-micromachining and surface-micromachining techniques. From a static test of the cantilever beam resonant accelerometer, a frequency shift of 860Hz has been measured for the proof-mass deflection of 4.30.5; thereby resulting in the detection sensitivity of 1.1010Hz/g. Uncertainty analysis of the resonant frequency output has been performed to identify important issues involved in the design, fabrication and testing of the resonant accelerometer.