A Subnano-g Electrostatic Force-Rebalanced Flexure Accelerometer for Gravity Gradient Instruments
Shitao Yan,
Yafei Xie,
Mengqi Zhang,
Zhongguang Deng,
Liangcheng Tu
Affiliations
Shitao Yan
MOE Key Laboratory of Fundamental Physical Quantities Measurement & Hubei Key Laboratory of Gravitation and Quantum Physics, School of Physics, Huazhong University of Science and Technology, Wuhan 430074, China
Yafei Xie
MOE Key Laboratory of Fundamental Physical Quantities Measurement & Hubei Key Laboratory of Gravitation and Quantum Physics, School of Physics, Huazhong University of Science and Technology, Wuhan 430074, China
Mengqi Zhang
MOE Key Laboratory of Fundamental Physical Quantities Measurement & Hubei Key Laboratory of Gravitation and Quantum Physics, School of Physics, Huazhong University of Science and Technology, Wuhan 430074, China
Zhongguang Deng
MOE Key Laboratory of Fundamental Physical Quantities Measurement & Hubei Key Laboratory of Gravitation and Quantum Physics, School of Physics, Huazhong University of Science and Technology, Wuhan 430074, China
Liangcheng Tu
MOE Key Laboratory of Fundamental Physical Quantities Measurement & Hubei Key Laboratory of Gravitation and Quantum Physics, School of Physics, Huazhong University of Science and Technology, Wuhan 430074, China
A subnano-g electrostatic force-rebalanced flexure accelerometer is designed for the rotating accelerometer gravity gradient instrument. This accelerometer has a large proof mass, which is supported inversely by two pairs of parallel leaf springs and is centered between two fixed capacitor plates. This novel design enables the proof mass to move exactly along the sensitive direction and exhibits a high rejection ratio at its cross-axis directions. Benefiting from large proof mass, high vacuum packaging, and air-tight sealing, the thermal Brownian noise of the accelerometer is lowered down to less than 0.2 ng / Hz with a quality factor of 15 and a natural resonant frequency of about 7.4 Hz . The accelerometer’s designed measurement range is about ±1 mg. Based on the correlation analysis between a commercial triaxial seismometer and our accelerometer, the demonstrated self-noise of our accelerometers is reduced to lower than 0.3 ng / Hz over the frequency ranging from 0.2 to 2 Hz, which meets the requirement of the rotating accelerometer gravity gradiometer.
