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Due to the working principle of MEMS resonant accelerometers, their thermally induced frequency drift is an inevitable practical issue for their extensive application. This paper is focused on reducing the thermally induced packaging effects on the frequency drift. A leadless ceramic chip carrier package with a stress-buffering layer was proposed for a MEMS resonant accelerometer, and the influences of packaging structure parameters on the frequency drift were investigated through finite element simulations and verified experimentally. Because of the thermal mismatch between dissimilar materials, the thermo-mechanical stress within the resonant beam leads to a change in the effective stiffness and causes the frequency drift to decrease linearly with increasing temperature. Furthermore, our investigations reveal that increasing the stress-buffering layer thickness and reducing the solder layer thickness can significantly minimize the thermo-mechanical stress within the resonant beam. As the neutral plane approaches the horizontal symmetry plane of the resonant beam when optimizing the packaging structure, the effects of the compressive and tensile stresses on the effective stiffness of the resonant beam will cancel each other out, which can dramatically reduce the frequency drift. These findings provide guidelines for packaging design through which to improve the temperature stability of MEMS resonant accelerometers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An MEMS resonant accelerometer is a temperature-sensitive device because temperature change affects the intrinsic resonant frequency of the inner silicon beam. Most classic temperature compensation methods, such as algorithm modeling and structure design, have large errors under rapid temperature changing due to the hysteresis of the temperature response of the accelerometer. To address this issue, we propose a novel reservoir computing (RC) structure based on a nonlinear silicon resonator, which is specifically improved for predicting dynamic information that is referred to as the input–output-improved reservoir computing (IOI-RC) algorithm. It combines the polynomial fitting with the RC on the input data mapping ensuring that the system always resides in the rich nonlinear state. Meanwhile, the output layer is also optimized by vector concatenation operation for higher memory capacity. Therefore, the new system has better performance in dynamic temperature compensation. In addition, the method is real-time, with easy hardware implementation that can be integrated with MEMS sensors. The experiment's result showed a 93% improvement in IOI-RC compared to raw data in a temperature range of −20–60 °C. The study confirmed the feasibility of RC in realizing dynamic temperature compensation precisely, which provides a potential real-time online temperature compensation method and a sensor system with edge computing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we demonstrate a novel photonic integrated accelerometer based on the optical mode localization sensing mechanism, which is designed on an SOI wafer with a device layer thickness of 220 nm. High sensitivity and large measurement range can be achieved by integrating coupled ring resonators with a suspended directional coupler on a proof mass. With the help of FEA simulation and numerical analysis, the proposed optical mode-localized sensor presents a sensitivity of 10/g (modal power ratio/acceleration) and an inertial displacement of from −8 to 10 microns corresponding to a range from −23.5 to 29.4 g. The free spectral range is 4.05 nm around 1.55 microns. The acceleration resolution limited by thermomechanical noise is 4.874 μg. The comprehensive performance of this design is competitive with existing MEMS mode localized accelerometers. It demonstrates the potential of the optical mode-localized inertial sensors as candidates for state-of-the-art sensors in the future. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

MEMS resonant accelerometers are robust to electromagnetic interference and have higher sensitivity and resolution. However, they are susceptible to temperature variation, which may limit this type of sensor used in high-end applications. This paper proposes a TDS-PLL with MEMS VCO for MEMS resonant accelerometers to be immune to temperature drift. The theoretical analysis of TDS-PLL MRA demonstrates it can suppress the temperature drift, which is verified by simulation and measurement results. Measurement results of the TDS-PLL MRA show that the bias instability is $13.15~\mu \text{g}$ and the noise level is $7.04~\mu \text{g}/\surd $ Hz with 0.32g full scale at room temperature. The temperature coefficient of bias stability in TDS-PLL MRA achieves 2.21 mg/°C in a temperature range of 300K to 360K, which is lower 5.5 times than that of the traditional PLL MRA with frequency shift. [2022-0098] [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Accelerometers based on outputting amplitude ratios in weakly coupled resonators (WCRs) are attractive because their parametric sensitivity is higher by two or three orders of magnitudes than those based on outputting frequency. However, the impact of temperature on the coupler is a key factor in accelerometer applications. This paper proposed a novel mode-localized WCR accelerometer with a temperature compensation mechanism, with sensitive elements incorporating a double-ended tuning fork (DETF) resonator, clamped–clamped (CC) resonator, and a micro-lever coupler. The DETF out-of-phase mode is utilized, which is only sensitive to temperature, to measure the temperature change of WCRs and complete the temperature compensation using the compensation algorithm. This proposed method has no time delay in measuring the temperature of sensitive elements and no temperature difference caused by the uneven temperature field. The parametric sensitivity in amplitude ratio (AR) to acceleration drifting with temperature was theoretically analyzed, and the novel device was designed and fabricated by a silicon-on-glass process. Both simulation and experiment results demonstrated that the coupling stiffness drifted with temperature, which resulted in the drifts of its sensitivity to acceleration and zero-bias stability. Using the intrinsic mode of WCRs, in terms of the DETF out-of-phase mode, as an in situ thermometer and carrying out the temperature compensation algorithm, the drift of zero bias could be suppressed from 102 mg to 4.5 mg (g is the gravity acceleration), and the drift of the parameter sensitivity in AR was suppressed from 0.74 AR/g to 0.02 AR/g with the temperature range from 330 K to 370 K and acceleration range from 0 g to 0.2 g. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Mode-localized sensing paradigms applied to accelerometers have recently become popular research subjects. However, the output of mode-localized accelerometers is influenced by environment temperature due to the difference in the thermal properties of the coupling resonators and the temperature dependence of coupling stiffness. To improve the performance of mode-localized accelerometers against temperature, we proposed an in situ self-temperature compensation method by utilizing the resonant frequency besides of amplitude ratios, which can be implied online. Experimental results showed that there were nearly 79-times and 87-times improvement in zeros bias and scale factor, respectively. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper introduces a differential vibrating beam MEMS accelerometer demonstrating excellent long-term stability for applications in gravimetry and seismology. The MEMS gravimeter module demonstrates an output Allan deviation of 9 μGal for a 1000 s integration time, a noise floor of 100 μGal/√Hz, and measurement over the full ±1 g dynamic range (1 g = 9.81 ms−2). The sensitivity of the device is demonstrated through the tracking of Earth tides and recording of ground motion corresponding to a number of teleseismic events over several months. These results demonstrate that vibrating beam MEMS accelerometers can be employed for measurements requiring high levels of stability and resolution with wider implications for precision measurement employing other resonant-output MEMS devices such as gyroscopes and magnetometers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A novel differential configuration of a high-resolution mode-localized resonant SOI-MEMS accelerometer is presented in this paper. An effective maximum scale factor of 11/g and a bias-stability of $2.96\mu g$ is demonstrated. A minimum noise floor of $3\mu g/\sqrt {Hz}$ is shown for device operation in an optimum working region. A large bandwidth of 350Hz is reported and methods to electronically tune the working bandwidth are described. These results benchmark mode-localized accelerometers favourably with respect to other high-end low-g commercial MEMS accelerometers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Resonant MEMS accelerometers offer the potential for very high resolution and wide bandwidth measurements over a large input dynamic range. The read-out is implemented by constructing an oscillator with the resonator as the primary frequency determining element. The noise of this oscillator front-end typically determines the resolution of the device, and the noise floor is set by the modulation of operative noise processes by the system dynamics. The resonator element is typically operated in the linear regime to prevent the detrimental impact of resonator non-linearities on noise conversion limiting frequency stability. However, by operating at higher drive power levels it is possible to also increase the signal-to-noise ratio for sufficiently large input frequencies. This paper shows that improved device performance over a wide bandwidth is possible by employing appropriate amplitude and phase feedback schemes to optimally bias the resonator thus enabling both short-term and long-term measurements with an electrically tunable resolution. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Resonant accelerometers are promising because of their wide dynamic range and long-term stability. With quasi-digital frequency output, the outputs of resonant accelerometers are less vulnerable to the noise from circuits and ambience. Differential structure is usually adopted in a resonant accelerometer to achieve higher sensitivity to acceleration and to reduce common noise at the same time. Ideally, a resonant accelerometer is only sensitive to external acceleration. However, temperature has a great impact on resonant accelerometers, causing unexcepted frequency drift. In order to cancel out the frequency drift caused by temperature change, an improved temperature compensation method for differential vibrating accelerometers without additional temperature sensors is presented in this paper. Experiment results demonstrate that the temperature sensitivity of the prototype sensor is reduced from 43.16 ppm/°C to 0.83 ppm/°C within the temperature range of −10 °C to 70 °C using the proposed method. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Non-contact and non-destructive acceleration measurement is receiving considerable attention due to their low cost, flexibility, and simplicity of implementation, as well as their excellent performance in some emerging applications such as medical electronics applications, vibration monitoring, and some other special scenarios. In this paper, a visual accelerometer system based on laser speckle optical flow detection named Viaxl is proposed. Compared with the conventional non-contact acceleration measurement method based on a laser system, Viaxl has moderate and stable performance with the advantages of low cost and simplicity of implementation. Experiment results demonstrate that Viaxl, which consists of a commercial camera and a low-cost laser pointer, can achieve real-time, non-contact acceleration measurement, and confirm the basic system performance of Viaxl: a measurement nonlinearity better than 1.3%, up to 31 dB signal-to-noise ratio, and 1150 Hz theoretic bandwidth; this demonstrates the huge potential of Viaxl in a wide range of applications, and provides a new possible technical method for non-contact acceleration detection. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The sensitivity of the resonant sensors has been proven to be remarkably enhanced by using mode localization of the weakly coupled resonators as the sensing mechanism. This paper reports a mode-localized resonant accelerometer (ML-RXL) with a novel designed micro-lever mechanical coupler, which is connected with two identical resonators and interconnects the strain energy flow 'leaked' from the non-ideal anchors of the two resonators to enable weak mechanical coupling. The coupling stiffness between the resonators can be reduced by optimizing the anchor to make it more ideal to weaken the leakage energy or optimizing the critical dimension of the micro-lever to weaken the transmission of the leakage energy. A finite element method (FEM) simulation model is established and the simulation results demonstrate that the two methods can effectively weaken the coupling strength between the resonators and improve the sensitivity. The wafer-level vacuum-packaged ML-RXL prototype device is fabricated using the silicon-on-insulator process and is performed in both open-loop and closed-loop tests respectively. The open-loop experiment results demonstrate that the sensitivity of the prototype can be improved from 8.86AR/g to 46.28AR/g, which is consistent with the FEM simulation results. The closed-loop experimental results demonstrate that the sensitivity of the prototype is 46.10AR/g under the linear range of 0.22 g. Moreover, the noise floor decreases from 4.39 μ g / H z to 1.71 μ g / H z within 10 Hz bandwidth, and the bias-instability decreases from 4.27 μg to 1.6 μg. [Display omitted] • We propose a mode-localized resonant accelerometer with a novel designed micro-lever mechanical coupler to significantly enhance its sensitivity. • The micro-lever coupler is designed to transfer strain energy flow 'leaked' from the non-ideal anchor to enable coupling. • Simulations and experimental results demonstrated the improvement in sensitivity using the micro-lever mechanical coupler. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]