A Tuning Fork Gyroscope with a Polygon-Shaped Vibration Beam

Abstract

In this paper, a tuning fork gyroscope with a polygon-shaped vibration beam is proposed. The vibration structure of the gyroscope consists of a polygon-shaped vibration beam, two supporting beams, and four vibration masts. The spindle azimuth of the vibration beam is critical for performance improvement. As the spindle azimuth increases, the proposed vibration structure generates more driving amplitude and reduces the initial capacitance gap, so as to improve the signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) of the gyroscope. However, after taking the driving amplitude and the driving voltage into consideration comprehensively, the optimized spindle azimuth of the vibration beam is designed in an appropriate range. Then, both wet etching and dry etching processes are applied to its manufacture. After that, the fabricated gyroscope is packaged in a vacuum ceramic tube after bonding. Combining automatic gain control and weak capacitance detection technology, the closed-loop control circuit of the drive mode is implemented, and high precision output circuit is achieved for the gyroscope. Finally, the proposed Micro Electro Mechanical Systems (MEMS) gyroscope system demonstrates a bias instability of 0.589°/h, an angular random walk (ARW) of 0.038°/√h, and a bandwidth of greater than 100 Hz in a full scale range of ± 200°/s at room temperature.