Master Clock Vibration-Isolation Technology Improvements for Aircraft Avionics

The goal of this work is to provide the Navy with a new, ultra-small vibration suppression system for quartz oscillators, which will be used as a master clock reference for fast data rate sensor arrays, radar, anti-jamming, and other electronic countermeasures used in high vibration environments. This is important because precision clocks needed for electronic warfare applications are extremely vibration sensitive and are compromised by the vibration inherent in ground vehicles, helicopters, and jets. This technology is called the Integrated Vibration Isolator for Quartz (IVIQ). This system consists of a micromachined vibration isolator and an accelerometer based vibration compensation system which work together to compensate for vibrations in the environment. This system is dramatically smaller (200) and more cost effective than any approach currently used. Furthermore, this is the first vibration isolation system which can be assembled directly onto a circuit board. Long term, the IVIQ system will even be further reduced in size and applied for isolating various other sensors. In phase I, initial prototypes were fabricated and partially characterized. In phase II, fully functional IVIQ-Quartz Clocks will be developed and provided to the Navy for functional tests with a yet to be determined sensor system.