The First Frequency-Modulated (FM) Pitch Gyroscope

Abstract

In this work, the mechanical design and the experimental validation of a micro-electromechanical frequency-modulated (FM) pitch gyroscope are presented. The proposed device is fabricated through the ThELMA © surface micromachining process of STMicroelectronics and it represents, to the authors’ knowledge, the first small-footprint (690 µm × 946 µm) prototype of FM gyroscope able to measure an in-plane angular rate. The measured scale factor, defined as the mean angular gain, equals 0.973 Hz/Hz, in close agreement with theoretical predictions. It depends only on the mass distribution in the mechanical structure and is, consequently, not influenced by environmental fluctuations.

Keywords

• MEMS
• frequency modulation (FM)
• pitch gyroscope