Design and simulation of thermally driven microgyroscopes

The present study focuses on a novel thermally actuated MEMS microgyroscope design. Unlike most electrostatically driven vibratory gyroscopes operating at high voltages and causing problems with circuit integration, our proposed electro-thermally driven microgyroscope requires an AC excitation signal of 2 volts (peak-to-peak). The working principles of the microgyroscope are discussed. A prototype of the proposed microgyroscope has been developed using the MetalMUMPs process. A finite element modal analysis of the microgyroscope was conducted using COMSOL Multiphysics™ software to estimate the drive and sense mode resonant frequencies. These drive and sense mode resonant frequencies along with the drive mode characterization at the sense mode resonant frequency have been measured using Polytec™ Microsystem Analyzer (MSA).