Modeling and simulation of the MEMS vibratory gyroscope

With advances in fabrication technologies lowering cost, MEMS gyroscopes are being used in an ever wider variety of applications, including those requiring operation at/or beyond the manufacturer's recommended temperature range. In these high temperature applications, such as deep water energy exploration and down-hole drilling, extensive lab testing is required to assess the effects of temperature on the response of a MEMS gyroscope. The objective of this paper is to develop a method to simulate the behavior of a MEMS vibratory gyroscope at various temperature conditions. The MEMS vibratory gyroscope is a two degree-of-freedom spring-mass-damper system. With known values of mass, spring stiffness and damping coefficient in the drive and sense direction, the characteristic equations of motion of the MEMS vibratory gyroscope can be solved using the first order approach developed in this paper. It is also shown, by comparing simulation results with experimental results, that this approach can accurately simulate the temperature-dependent characteristics of a MEMS vibratory gyroscope.