A Review of MEMS Vibrating Gyroscopes and Their Reliability Issues in Harsh Environments

Abstract

Micro-electromechanical systems (MEMS) vibrating gyroscopes have gained a lot of attention over the last two decades because of their low power consumption, easy integration, and low fabrication cost. The usage of the gyroscope equipped with an inertial measurement unit has increased tremendously, with applications ranging from household devices to smart electronics to military equipment. However, reliability issues are still a concern when operating this inertial sensor in harsh environments, such as to control the movement and alignment of mini-satellites in space, tracking firefighters at an elevated temperature, and assisting aircraft navigation in gusty turbulent air. This review paper focuses on the key fundamentals of the MEMS vibrating gyroscopes, first discussing popular designs including the tuning fork, gimbal, vibrating ring, and multi-axis gyroscopes. It further investigates how bias stability, angle random walk, scale factor, and other performance parameters are affected in harsh environments and then discusses the reliability issues of the gyroscopes.

Design and analysis of mode-matched decoupled mass MEMS gyroscope with improved thermal stability

“…Microelectromechanical system (MEMS) gyroscopes are inertial sensors used for measuring the angular velocity of an object by using the Coriolis effect. In the past two decades, resonant MEMS gyroscopes have attracted significant attention from both academia and industry because of their advantages of compact size, high sensitivity, low power usage, low fabrication cost, and bulk production [1][2][3][4]. At the start of the 21st century, research on MEMS gyroscopes began to advance, paving the way for practical design implementations [4].…”

“…In the past two decades, resonant MEMS gyroscopes have attracted significant attention from both academia and industry because of their advantages of compact size, high sensitivity, low power usage, low fabrication cost, and bulk production [1][2][3][4]. At the start of the 21st century, research on MEMS gyroscopes began to advance, paving the way for practical design implementations [4]. MEMS resonant gyroscopes have numerous applications across various industries.…”

The Application of Wearable Sensors and Machine Learning Algorithms in Rehabilitation Training: A Systematic Review

“…They can convert motion signals into electrical signals, which are amplified and processed by electronic circuits [ 17 ]. A gyroscope is an angular motion-detection device that measures the angular velocity around multiple axes [ 18 ]. Accelerometers are sensors that measure changes in velocity in a single direction.…”

Multi-Ring Disk Resonator with Elliptic Spokes for Frequency-Modulated Gyroscope

“…Micro-Electro-Mechanical Systems (MEMS) gyroscopes have widespread applications in many fields; they could be used for stabilization and rollover detection in smartphones and drones, or be applied together with accelerometers for inertial navigation purposes, and also have a wide range of application in robots and military applications, etc. They have become increasingly popular over the last 20 years due to their advantages, such as small volumes, stable performance, and relatively low costs [ 1 , 2 , 3 ]. In MEMS gyroscopes, a resonator is applied for sensing the Coriolis force.…”

“…Amplitude-modulated (AM) and force-to-rebalanced (FTR) gyroscopes have been studied for a long time. The AM gyroscopes detect the Coriolis force through the amplitude signal of the resonator, but this method imposes a trade-off between sensitivity and operation bandwidth [ 3 , 4 ]. FTR gyroscopes are proposed to solve this problem, which retain the amplitude of the sensing axis static through the feedback control, possess an increased bandwidth, and improve the detection stability [ 5 ].…”