A High-Performance, Magnetically-Suspended, MEMS Spinning-Wheel Gyro

This proposal is to fabricate and demonstrate miniature, true high performance gyros that can be manufactured with low-cost MEMS technology. The design is based on a method of generating substantial angular momentum, (greater than 2,000 dyne-cm-sec), inthe complete absence of material-to-material contact by using a magnetically-suspended spinning wheel. MSSA projects the performance and reliability of this gyro design to equal that of fiber optic gyros. The low-cost MEMS fabrication technology useselectrodeposition of widely-used magnetic materials or the electrochemical etching of conventionally-fabricated magnetic materials, technologies which are highly developed and available. The overall size of the gyro is projected to be only 2 cm x 2 cm and0.5 cm thick. The Phase I effort will result in a design of a baseline gyro. This Phase II program is to fabricate and test the component parts and to demonstrate a working prototype of a magnetically-suspended, spinning-wheel MEMS gyro.