Dr. Frank Z. Feng (Project 1)

Nonlinear Dynamics Study and Development of High Performance MEMS Gyroscopes

Even though microelectromechanical gyroscopes (often called MEMS gyros, or microgyros) are about to be commercialized, the low technical performances of these microgyros limit their use to less demanding automotive applications. High performance MEMS gyroscopes are in demand. The specific example is for navigation of vehicles and micro spacecraft.

We propose research in understanding the nonlinear dynamics of MEMS gyroscopes as one way of achieving better gyro performance. The major task to achieve this objective is to understand the instability reported by other investigators. The onset of instability in MEMS gyroscopes prevents the microgyros to operate at optimum conditions. Specifically, the mismatch between the resonance frequencies in the microgyro structure was not minimized in existing designs. Since the microgyros have very low damping, operating not at perfect resonance greatly limits the gyro performances. To remove this barrier, nonlinearity in the system must be considered since the system dynamics near resonances is well-known to be greatly affected by nonlinear effects even though these nonlinear effects are otherwise small.

We also propose development effort to find better fabrication techniques to make thick structures for the microgyros. This is purely motivated by the simple fact that microgyros are inertia sensors and thicker structures will accentuate the Coriolis force and make the signal detection more immune to the noise associated with the signal amplification.

Objectives:

• Develop the design of high sensitivity "tactical grade" microgyroscopes
• Develop through-the-wafer silicon etching

Applications:

• NASA, navigation of micro spacecraft, Department of Defense

Funding Agency:

• National Science Foundation

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