Design and Optimization of the Mode-Order-Optimized Disk Gyroscope With High Mechanical Sensitivity

This article presents a methodology for optimizing the mechanical sensitivity of disk gyroscopes while maintaining an optimized mode order. First, the working principle and the detrimental effects of the parasitic mode are analyzed to highlight the importance of sensitivity and mode order. Subsequently, the degradation of the operation mode’s quality factor due to parasitic mode coupling is analyzed. Therefore, mode-order-optimized disk gyroscopes with one layer of masses hung in the innermost space are proposed. Then, critical parametric analyses are implemented to reveal the challenge in searching for the maximum mechanical sensitivity due to the narrow feasible domain satisfying mode order optimization. Thus, the dynamic $\varepsilon $ constrained differential evolution (DE) algorithm is strategically adopted to improve the mechanical sensitivity that meets constraint conditions, and the ${n} =2$ mode identification and retrieval method based on the angular gain is developed to ensure the normal operation of the optimization method. To validate the effectiveness and scalability of this method, it is applied to gyroscopes with 3–6 rings. The results demonstrate that each optimized gyroscope achieves maximum mechanical sensitivity while maintaining the ${n} =2$ mode as the first order with a frequency separation no less than 1000 Hz. These findings conclusively validate the efficacy of the proposed optimization methodology and provide a valuable reference for other micromachined sensor designs.