Date of Award

7-7-2020

Publication Type

Master Thesis

Degree Name

M.A.Sc.

Department

Mechanical, Automotive, and Materials Engineering

Keywords

Coriolis force, Gyroscopes, MEMS, Polymumps, Quality factor, Sensors

Supervisor

Mohammed J Ahamed

Rights

info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess

Abstract

Microelectromechanical systems (MEMS) is the technology combining electrical components with mechanical systems at a micro scale. The combination of these two technologies allowed devices to interact with each other and build complex structures. System on the chips are built with components such as masses, electrodes, anchors, actuators and detectors. Reducing the size, weight, energy usage and cost is key while maintaining the sensors integrity. Sensitivity is an important factor when evaluating a gyroscope’s performance. This research presents beam modeling techniques for maximizing mechanical sensitivity of the butterfly resonator for gyroscopic applications. It investigates the geometric aspects of synchronizing beam that connects the wings of a butterfly resonator. The results show that geometric variation in the synchronizing beam can have a large effect on the frequency split and sensitivity of the device. The model simulation demonstrates a sensitivity of 10e-12 (m/°/sec) for a frequency split of 10 Hz, resulting from the optimized synchronous beam. Out of plane actuation was developed to drive and sense the resonators displacement. A butterfly sensor chip was fabricated to capture the dynamic responses of the resonator and to observe the theoretical and experimental results. Two butterfly resonators were tested, and the experimental results show a frequency split of 305 Hz and 400 Hz, while the model illustrated a split of 195 Hz and 220 Hz, respectively. The design and analysis presented in this thesis can further aid the development of MEMS butterfly resonators for inertial sensing applications.

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