A piezoelectric triaxial accelerometer

Abstract

A new piezoelectric silicon accelerometer design is presented. The design allows sensing in three directions. The accelerometer is designed to have a detection level of and a resonance frequency of 10 kHz.

Historical Perspective of Accelerometer Technologies

“…In a theoretical study, calculations of sensitivity and nonlinearity were done on a ZnO-based triaxial accelerometer (16). Noise level simulations were done on an ASIC charge amplifier, that should be built together with the accelerometer in a package.…”

“…ZnO-based accelerometer as described in (16). The reported designs can be optimised, but not enough to achieve a 40dB improvement of the signal-to-noise-ratio.…”

“…It was an open-loop, cantilever-type accelerometer, based on sputtered ZnO, and with an on-chip MOS preamplifier. In 1994, a theoretical study was done at B&K to investigate the possibility of a triaxial ZnO-based accelerometer (16).…”

Circular piezoelectric accelerometer for high band width application

“…MEMS based piezoelectric accelerometers are smaller, have lower costs and are comparable in performance to the piezoelectric accelerometers commercially available today [1]. A potential application for the type of accelerometer presented here is machine monitoring [2].…”

Analytical Model of a PZT Thick-Film Triaxial Accelerometer for Optimum Design

“…A need for more cost efficient and miniaturized accelerometers increases the interest for MEMS-based solutions [2]. The piezoelectric accelerometer may show less temperature dependence, better long term stability and higher bandwidth compared to the two other main read out principles: capacitive and piezoresistive [3] depending, however, strongly on the properties of the piezoelectric material.…”