Design and Analysis of a Novel MOEMS Gyroscope Using an Electrostatic Comb-Drive Actuator and an Optical Sensing System

In this paper, a novel vibratory optical MEMS gyroscope is proposed, which is composed of an optical sensing system, an electrostatic comb-drive actuator, and a mass-spring system with 2 degrees of freedom and a decoupling frame. The optical sensing system consists of a laser diode light source, a tunable photonic crystal, a photodetector, and integrated waveguides. The sensitive element of the proposed gyroscope has been designed with separated primary and secondary resonance frequencies to increase the operating bandwidth. Simulation results show that the functional characteristics of the proposed gyroscope are as follows: an operating frequency of 1830 Hz, a sense mode resonance frequency of 2330 Hz, an operating bandwidth of 200 Hz, a mechanical sensitivity of 0.14 nm/(°/s), an optical sensitivity of 0.051 nm/(°/s), and a measurement range of ±500 °/s.