Structure design of a 2-D high-aspect-ratio resonant microbearn accelerometer

Abstract

An accelerometer with concise structure having a resonant microbeam to measure 2-D acceleration is proposed. This structure is configured with a central proof mass suspended by four symmetrical and orthogonal high-aspect-ratio (HAR) microbeams. This dual-axis design is able to decouple a two-axis signal from a 2-D acceleration. An analytical model relating the linear relationship between the acceleration and the associated resonant frequency shift of microbeam is derived, and a finite element analysis (FEA) is also performed to confirm this model. The FEA result also shows that there is little cross talk between x and y directions of measurement, meaning that this structure is able to clecouple a planar 2-D acceleration into two independent acceleration components, and therefore the 1-D analytical model can be used to evaluate the 2-D acceleration on the x-y plane. In addition, the model is verified by testing results of one conventional dual-axis natural frequency shifted microaccelerometer (DFSM). The simulation result also shows that the sensitivity of the proposed HAR accelerometer is triple that of a conventional DFSM. (c) 2005 Society ofPhoto-Optical Instrumentation Engineers.