A Micromachined Comb-Drive Tuning Fork Rate Gyroscope

Marc Weinberg, Jonathan Bernstein, Steven Cho, A. Thomas King, Anthony Kourepenis, and Paul Maciel

Abstract:	Draper Laboratory is developing single-crystal tuning-fork gyroscopes of very small size and low cost using microfabrication technology. These tuning-fork gyros are extremely rugged, inherently balanced, and easy to fabricate. The gyroscopes have been fabricated from single-crystal silicon anodically bonded to a glass substrate (dissolved wafer process). For a l-mm silicon gyroscope, projected performance is 10 to 100 deg/h for bias stability and for resolution in a 60-Hz bandwidth. Resolution of 1,000 deg/h in a 60-Hz bandwidth and bias stability of 1,000 deg/h overnight has been demonstrated with self-drive oscillation. In special tests, resolution better‘than 150 deg/h has been recorded. In this paper, the following topics are covered: the principle of operation, projected and measured performance, and fabrication of silicon gyro-scopes. Associated electronics and control issues will also be addressed.
Published in:	Proceedings of the 49th Annual Meeting of The Institute of Navigation (1993) June 21 - 23, 1993 Royal Sonesta Hotel Cambridge, MA
Pages:	595 - 602
Cite this article:	Weinberg, Marc, Bernstein, Jonathan, Cho, Steven, King, A. Thomas, Kourepenis, Anthony, Maciel, Paul, "A Micromachined Comb-Drive Tuning Fork Rate Gyroscope," Proceedings of the 49th Annual Meeting of The Institute of Navigation (1993), Cambridge, MA, June 1993, pp. 595-602.
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