The Silicon Oscillating Accelerometer: A High-Performance MEMS Accelerometer for Precision Navigation and Strategic Guidance Applications

R. Hopkins, J. Miola, W. Sawyer, R. Setterlund and B. Dow

Abstract:	The intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) and submarine-launched strategic missiles developed over the past 50 years have employed successive generations of increasingly accurate inertial guidance systems. The comparatively short time of guided flight and high acceleration levels characteristic of the ballistic missile application place a premium on accelerometer performance to achieve desired weapon system accuracy. Currently, the U.S. strategic missile arsenal relies on variants of the pendulous integrating gyro accelerometer (PIGA) to meet the high-performance, radiation-hard requirements of the weapon system. Likewise, precision navigation systems, such as the currently deployed SSBN Ship Inertial Navigation Systems (SINS), employ highly specialized and complex electromechanical instruments that, like the PIGA, present a system life-cycle cost and maintenance challenge. The PIGA and the Electromagnetic Accelerometer (EMA) demonstrate unsurpassed performance, however, their life-cycle cost has motivated a search for a highperformance, solid-state, strategic accelerometer. The Draper Laboratory is currently in the process of developing the Silicon Oscillating Accelerometer (SOA), a MEMS-based sensor that has demonstrated in laboratory testing the part-per-million (ppm)/µg scalefactor and bias performance stability required of precision guidance navigation applications. The ICBM and SSBN applications have significantly different environmental, acceleration dynamic range, and resolution requirements that are best satisfied by optimizing the SOA geometry for each application. The design flexibility and wafer-scale fabrication methods of the silicon MEMS process enable manufacturing both instrument designs with essentially zero incremental cost associated with the additional instrument assembly line. That is, the SOAs developed for the ICBM guidance and SSBN navigation applications share a common sensor package, electronics architecture, main housing and instrument assembly process. This paper will give an overview of the Draper SOA and compare and contrast performance data taken to date on both versions of the SOA.
Published in:	Proceedings of the 2005 National Technical Meeting of The Institute of Navigation January 24 - 26, 2005 The Catamaran Resort Hotel San Diego, CA
Pages:	970 - 979
Cite this article:	Hopkins, R., Miola, J., Sawyer, W., Setterlund, R., Dow, B., "The Silicon Oscillating Accelerometer: A High-Performance MEMS Accelerometer for Precision Navigation and Strategic Guidance Applications," Proceedings of the 2005 National Technical Meeting of The Institute of Navigation, San Diego, CA, January 2005, pp. 970-979.
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