An improved-sensitivity resonant accelerometer with fishbone-shaped resonators of higher vibration modes

This paper reports an improved-sensitivity resonant accelerometer with fishbone-shaped resonators of higher vibration modes. Different from conventional resonant accelerometer integrating with low-order vibrating resonators, our prototype utilizes higher-mode fishbone-shaped resonators based on the principle that higher vibration modes have a higher frequency sensitivity. The proposed fishbone-shaped resonator can realize the mode selection and frequency-tuning function according to the configuration of sensing and driving electrodes. So this resonant accelerometer has sensitivity improvable and adjustable function compared to state of the art. Experimental results demonstrate the average differential sensitivities spanning from 12.44Hz/g to 61.00Hz/g (Mode 1: 12.44Hz/g; Mode 2: 36.94Hz/g; Mode 3: 61.00Hz/g) and the average resonant frequencies are 116.47KHz at mode 1, 299.87KHz at mode 2 and 548.35KHz at mode 3. Moreover, the tilt experiment verifies that this device has potential usage in tilt measurement.