Design and simulation of a new dual-axis control input piezoelectric gyroscope

This paper proposed a new design of the dual-axis control input, dual-axis position measurement piezoelectric gyroscope. Using piezoelectric actuation/ sensing to implement this gyroscope can be much more difficult than the conventional gyroscope, which equips only single-axis control input and dual-axis position measurement. This is because multiple mode shapes may exist in the flexure deformation, which complicates the relation between flexure deformation and the proof mass position. This paper solves this multiple-mode-shape problem by designing the location and dimensions of the electrodes such that the piezoelectric force would not excite multiple mode shapes and the voltage output of the sensing electrodes responds only to specific mode shapes. The proposed design achieves a sensitivity of 8 μv/deg/sec for the angular rate sensing and a quadrature error of 0.007%. The low quadrature error could be one of the advantages of sensing the position of the proof mass via sensing the specific deformed shape of the flexure.