Superflex: a Synergistic Combination of Vibrating Beam and Quartz Flexure Accelerometer Technology

Vibrating beam technology offers a significant advancement in the field of accelerometers for inertial navigation. The inherently digital output of the vibrating beam accelerometer eliminates the cost, size, weight, power consumption, and performance errors associated with digitizers. The crystalline quartz vibrating beam sensing elements are extremely stable and are compatible with low-cost, high-volume production techniques developed in the watch crystal industry. Low power consumption is common to this type of device. The Sundstrand vibrating beam, force-to-frequency converter utilizes two slender beams in a geometry analogous to a double-ended tuning fork. This configuration provides perfect dynamic balance of the resonator, which eliminates coupling and energy loss to the connecting structure. The slender beams of the crystal change frequency as a function of force in a manner similar to a musical stringed instrument. The Superflex mechanism design is an innovative approach which combines the unparalleled bias stability of an amorphous quartz flexure suspension with the scale factor stability of the crystalline quartz vibrating beam force sensor.