Characterization of a mechanical motion amplifier applied to a MEMS accelerometer

[en] In this paper, a mechanical amplification concept for microelectromechanical systems (MEMS) physical sensors is proposed with the aim to improve their sensitivity. The scheme is implemented using a system of micromachined levers (microlevers) as a deflection amplifying mechanism. The effectiveness of the mechanism is demonstrated for a capacitive accelerometer. A proof-of-concept single-axis mechanically amplified accelerometer with an amplification factor of 40 has been designed, simulated, and fabricated, and results from its evaluation are presented in this paper. The sensor's amplified output has a sensitivity of 2.39 V/g using an open-loop capacitive pick-off circuit based on charge amplifiers. Experimental results show that the addition of the mechanical amplifier does not alter the noise floor of the sensor. The measured natural frequency of the first mode of the sensor is at 734 Hz, and the full-scale measurement range is up to 7 g with a maximum nonlinearity of 2\%. It is shown, through comparison with a conventional design, that the mechanically amplified accelerometer provides higher deflection without sacrificing bandwidth.

Disciplines :

Electrical & electronics engineering

Author, co-author :

Zeimpekis, Ioannis

Sari, Ibrahim

Kraft, Michaël ; Université de Liège - ULiège > Dép. d'électric., électron. et informat. (Inst.Montefiore) > Systèmes microélectroniques intégrés

Language :

English

Title :

Characterization of a mechanical motion amplifier applied to a MEMS accelerometer

Publication date :

2012

Journal title :

Journal of Microelectromechanical Systems

ISSN :

1057-7157

eISSN :

1941-0158

Publisher :

Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, New-York, United States - New York

Volume :

Issue :

Pages :

1032-1042

Peer reviewed :

Peer Reviewed verified by ORBi

Additional URL :

http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/stamp/stamp.jsp?arnumber=6202313

Available on ORBi :

since 26 March 2015

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