ZRO Drift Reduction of MEMS Gyroscopes via Internal and Packaging Stress Release

Abstract

Zero-rate output (ZRO) drift induces deteriorated micro-electromechanical system (MEMS) gyroscope performances, severely limiting its practical applications. Hence, it is vital to explore an effective method toward ZRO drift reduction. In this work, we conduct an elaborate investigation on the impacts of the internal and packaging stresses on the ZRO drift at the thermal start-up stage and propose a temperature-induced stress release method to reduce the duration and magnitude of ZRO drift. Self-developed high-Q dual-mass tuning fork gyroscopes (TFGs) are adopted to study the correlations between temperature, frequency, and ZRO drift. Furthermore, a rigorous finite element simulation model is built based on the actual device and packaging structure, revealing the temperature and stresses distribution inside TFGs. Meanwhile, the relationship between temperature and stresses are deeply explored. Moreover, we introduce a temperature-induced stress release process to generate thermal stresses and reduce the temperature-related device sensitivity. By this way, the ZRO drift duration is drastically reduced from ~2000 s to ~890 s, and the drift magnitude decreases from ~0.4 °/s to ~0.23 °/s. The optimized device achieves a small bias instability (BI) of 7.903 °/h and a low angle random walk (ARW) of 0.792 °/√ h, and its long-term bias performance is significantly improved.

Design and Optimization of a Novel MEMS Tuning Fork Gyroscope Microstructure

“…Wang et al designed the multiple-beam tuning-fork structure to achieve high quality factors, promoting the sensitivity [13]. To suppress the zero-rate output drift of MEMS tuning fork gyroscopes, Xu et al proposed a temperature-induced stress release method [27]. This study focuses on the mode shape analysis of the gyroscope to achieve the purpose of optimizing the mechanical sensitivity.…”

“…To suppress the zero-rate output drift of MEMS tuning fork gyroscopes, Xu et al proposed a temperature-induced stress release method [27].…”