Abstract
A new micromachined vibrating ring gyroscope (VRG) architecture with low quadrature error and high-linearity is proposed, which successfully optimizes the working modes to first order resonance mode of the structure. The improved mode ordering can significantly reduce the vibration sensitivity of the device by adopting the hinge-frame mechanism. The frequency difference ratio is introduced to represent the optimization effect of modal characteristic. Furthermore, the influence of the structural parameters of hinge-frame mechanism on frequency difference ratio is clarified through analysis of related factors, which contributes to a more effective design of hinge-frame structure. The designed VRG architecture accomplishes the goal of high-linearity by using combination hinge and variable-area capacitance strategy, in contrast to the conventional approach via variable-separation drive/sense strategy. Finally, finite element method (FEM) simulations are carried out to investigate the stiffness, modal analysis, linearity, and decoupling characteristics of the design. The simulation results are sufficiently in agreement with theoretical calculations. Meanwhile, the hinge-frame mechanism can be widely applied in other existing ring gyroscopes, and the new design provides a path towards ultra-high performance for VRG.
Highlights
Due to the advantages on miniaturization, lightweight, easy integration, mass-production, and low-power consumption, the micro-electro-mechanical system (MEMS) vibrating gyroscope has become a significantly attractive device in a wide range of applications including automotive industry, biotechnology, medicine, space as well as consumer electronics [1,2,3]
Compared with tuning fork gyroscope (TFG), vibrating ring gyroscope (VRG) has the following advantages: (1) the sensitivity of the sensor is amplified by the quality factor due to the driving and sensing modes having identical frequency when the structures are fabricated from isotropic materials [4,5]. (2) It is less sensitive to temperature variations because thermal environment affects the identical vibrational modes of resonant rings [6,7]. (3) It is robust against random vibration since external vibrations do not couple to the identical vibration modes of rings [4,7,8,9]
It can be remarked that the hinge-frame mechanism we proposed can change the modal ordering of original ring gyroscope and is expected to be applied to all kinds of existing ring gyroscopes
Summary
Due to the advantages on miniaturization, lightweight, easy integration, mass-production, and low-power consumption, the micro-electro-mechanical system (MEMS) vibrating gyroscope has become a significantly attractive device in a wide range of applications including automotive industry, biotechnology, medicine, space as well as consumer electronics [1,2,3]. Compared with tuning fork gyroscope (TFG), vibrating ring gyroscope (VRG) has the following advantages: (1) the sensitivity of the sensor is amplified by the quality factor due to the driving and sensing modes having identical frequency when the structures are fabricated from isotropic materials [4,5]. The original sources of the limited full-scale range are the quadrature error and the parallel-plate sensing mechanism assumed to be linear consisting of fixed electrodes and the outer circumference of the ring. The hinge mechanisms with the advantage of rotation characteristic have attracted much attention and applied in MEMS devices, such as MEMS TFG, MEMS accelerometer and ring coupled gyroscope (RCG) [33,34,35]. A novel designed vibrating ring gyroscope with a hinge-frame mechanism (HFVRG).
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