Development of a dual-axis thermal convective gas gyroscope

This paper presents the development of a dual-axis gas gyroscope, whose working principle is based on the convective heat transfer and thermoresistive effect of lightly doped silicon. The working principle and the cross-sensitivity of the gas gyroscope are also analyzed. Experiments were performed to confirm the simulation results and good agreement has been achieved. The measured sensitivities for the X-axis and Y-axis were 0.107 mV deg−1 s−1 and 0.102 mV deg−1 s−1, respectively. Compared with a gyroscope of the same configuration but using tungsten as a sensing element, this gyroscope has 42 times greater sensitivity and one quarter the power consumption. These advantageous characteristics are inherited from the high TCR and high resistance of lightly doped p-type silicon. Nonlinearity and cross-sensitivity were measured to be smaller than 0.07% FS and 0.5% FS, respectively. The effect of acceleration on the sensitivity is 0.02 (deg s−1)/g and the measurement resolution based on sensitivity and noise analyses is 0.05 deg s−1. The relations between sensor performance, power consumption and ambient temperature were also realized.