A biologically-inspired hair accelerometer based on resonant sensing

A novel asymmetric biologically-inspired hair accelerometer based on resonant sensing are presented in the paper. In order to achieve a higher level of sensitivity, an amplification mechanism with two-stage micro-leverage and two symmetrical resonators is adopted to amplify the inertia force derived from the input acceleration. Analytical calculations based on commercially available Finite Element Method (FEM) soft ANSYS have been performed to determine geometric properties. The standard deep dry silicon on glass (DDSOG) is chosen to fabricate the novel hair accelerometer. The micro-assembly process is used to pattern and install the metal hair. A closed-loop self-oscillation circuit based on the phase frequency detector (PFD) and the coordinate rotation digital computer (CORDIC) algorithm is designed to detect the resonant frequency variation. The preliminary experimental results demonstrate that the hair accelerometer with 6mm hair has a scale factor of 578.6Hz/g and a bias stability of 15.5ug.