Modeling Of Structural And Environmental Effects On Microelectromechanical (Mems) Vibratory Gyroscopes

In this paper we investigate the effects of stiffness, damping and temperature on the performance of a MEMS vibratory gyroscope. The stiffness and damping parameters are chosen because they can be appropriately designed to synchronize the drive and sense mode resonance to enhance the sensitivity and stability of MEMS gyroscope. Our results show that increasing the drive axis stiffness by 50% reduces the sense mode amplitude by ~27% and augments the resonance frequency by ~21%. The stiffness and damping are mildly sensitive to typical variations in operating temperature. The stiffness increases by 1.25%, while the damping decreases by 3.81%, when the temperature is raised from 0C to 45C. Doubling the damping reduces the oscillation amplitude by 80%, but ~1% change in the frequency. The predicted effects of stiffness, damping and temperature can be utilized to design a gyroscope for the desired operating condition.