A self-centering and stiffness-controlled MEMS accelerometer

This paper presents a high-performance MEMS accelerometer with a DC/AC electrostatic stiffness tuning capability based on double-sided parallel plates(DSPPs).DC and AC electrostatic tuning enable the adjustment of the effective stiffness and the calibration of the geometric offset of the proof mass,respectively.A dynamical model of the proposed accelerometer was developed considering both DC/AC electrostatic tuning and the temperature effect.Based on the dynamical model,a self-centering closed loop is proposed for pulling the reference position of the forceto-rebalance(FTR)to the geometric center of DSPP.The self-centering accelerometer operates at the optimal reference position by eliminating the temperature drift of the readout circuit and nulling the net electrostatic tuning forces.The stiffness closed-loop is also incorporated to prevent the pull-in instability of the tuned low-stiffness accelerometer under a dramatic temperature variation.Real-time adjustments of the reference position and the DC tuning voltage are utilized to compensate for the residue temperature drift of the proposed accelerometer.As a result,a novel controlling approach composed of a self-centering closed loop,stiffness-closed loop,and temperature drift compensation is achieved for the accelerometer,realizing a temperature drift coefficient(TDC)of approximately 7μg/℃ and an Allan bias instability of less than 1μg.

Temperature Bias Drift Phase-Based Compensation for a MEMS Accelerometer with Stiffness-Tuning Double-Sided Parallel Plate Capacitors

This paper reports an approach of in-operation temperature bias drift compensation based on phase-based calibration for a stiffness-tunable MEMS accelerometer with double-sided parallel plate(DSPP)capacitors.The temperature drifts of the components of the accelerometer are characterized,and analytical models are built on the basis of the measured drift results.Results reveal that the temperature drift of the acceleration output bias is dominated by the sensitive mechanical stiffness.An out-of-bandwidth AC stimulus signal is introduced to excite the accelerometer,and the interference with the acceleration measurement is minimized.The demodulated phase of the excited response exhibits a monotonic relationship with the effective stiffness of the accelerometer.Through the proposed online compensation approach,the temperature drift of the effective stiffness can be detected by the demodulated phase and compensated in real time by adjusting the stiffness-tuning voltage of DSPP capacitors.The temperature drift coefficient(TDC)of the accelerometer is reduced from 0.54 to 0.29 mg/℃,and the Allan variance bias instability of about 2.8μg is not adversely affected.Meanwhile,the pull-in resulting from the temperature drift of the effective stiffness can be prevented.TDC can be further reduced to 0.04 mg/℃through an additional offline calibration based on the demodulated carrier phase representing the temperature drift of the readout circuit.