A single-crystal silicon vibrating ring gyroscope

TLDR: In this paper, a vibrating ring gyroscope fabricated in (111) oriented single-crystal silicon (SCS) is reported. But the performance of the gyro has not been evaluated.

Abstract: This paper reports a high-performance vibrating ring gyroscope fabricated in (111) oriented single-crystal silicon (SCS). High-performance microgyroscopes are needed in many applications, including inertial navigation, control, and defense/avionics/space. The ring gyroscope provides a number of advantages, including excellent mode matching, high-resolution, low zero-rate output, and long-term stability. In this paper, a SCS vibrating ring gyroscope with high aspect ratio silicon on glass structure was designed, fabricated and tested. The ring is 2.7mm in diameter and 150μm thick. The gyro has the following measured performance: high Q (12000), good nonlinearity (0.02%), large sensitivity (132 mV/°/sec), low output noise (10.4°/hr/Hz) and high resolution (7.2°/hr). The maximum bias shift is less than ±1°/sec over 10 hours without thermal control.