Silicon Angular Rate Sensor (SARS)

Development of a miniature solid state angular rate sensor is proposed. The proposed sensor is built on a silicon substrate using a three layered polysilicon sputtering process. The fabrication process employs the surface micromachining technology. The sensing element is flutter inertia suspended by a two gimbal flexure built in Poly One layer. It is sandwiched by two electrode plate layers built in Poly Zero and Poly Two. The flutter is dithered about the dither axis with a sinusoidal angular momentum. When an angular rate is applied normal to the plane of the flutter, it generates a modulating rotational output about the output axis. The devices utilize capacitive pickoff and electrostatic torquing. The servo circuitry can be built on-chip using the same technology. Detailed design, analysis of a potential device including some hardware experiments will be performed in PHase I to demonstrate the feasibility of the device. The device has many defense and commercial applications. It can be used in the emerging competent munitions to sense the high rates and to improve their guidance and control