Quality Factor Improvement in the Disk Resonator Gyroscope by Optimizing the Spoke Length Distribution

In this paper, we present a novel method to improve the quality factor in disk resonator gyroscopes (DRGs) by optimizing the spoke length distribution (SLD). As for DRGs with identical outer radius R, anchor radius r, ring width h, ring numbers n and spoke length boundaries [a, b] whereas with different SLDs, finite element simulation results show that the SLDs have a great influence on the DRGs’ resonant frequency
$\text{f}_{0}$
and thermoelastic quality factor (
$\text{Q}_{\mathrm {TED}}$
). This paper aims to find an optimized SLD to achieve the highest
$\text{Q}_{\mathrm {TED}}$
of a DRG. By using the particle swarm optimization method the optimum SLD of a 9-ring DRG is obtained and the
$\text{Q}_{\mathrm {TED}}$
is greatly improved. By further applying this method on the DRGs with different structural parameters, the regular rules of the optimum SLD are concluded and a simple method to get the optimized SLD for a DRG is proposed. By applying the method on the DRGs with different ring widths and ring numbers, the
$\text{Q}_{\mathrm {TED}}$
of them can be improved by 25%-43%. This demonstrates that the method is effective for the
$\text{Q}_{\mathrm {TED}}$
improvement. With this method, designers can easily obtain the optimized SLD in a DRG after the parameters R, r, h, and n are determined to further improve the DRG’s quality factor. [2017–0259]