IOP PUBLISHING JOURNAL OF MICROMECHANICS AND MICROENGINEERING

We propose a micro rate gyroscope (MRG) based on the surface acoustic wave (SAW) gyroscopic effect for extremely high-shock military applications. We not only derived theoretically the SAW gyroscopic gain factor in a ST-cut quartz by introducing a wave velocity ratio and the perturbation method, but also verified this gain factor by experiment. The proposed SAWMRG, which consists of two delay-line oscillators, operates as a differential scheme. To estimate an inherent insertion loss, we adopted the equivalent circuit model in the design process of the delay line. The 9 × 9 mm2 SAWMRG was fabricated on a ST-cut quartz and loaded into a specially designed low temperature co-fired ceramic (LTCC) package to ensure good RF characteristics. The center frequency and the insertion loss of the delay line are measured at 98.6 MHz and 15.2 dB, respectively. We evaluated the performance of the SAWMRG, using a rate table and stochastic noise analysis, revealing a sensitivity of 0.431 Hz deg−1 s−1 in the angular rates up to 2000 deg s−1 and a white noise of 0.55 deg s−1 Hz−1/2, respectively. Consequently the feasibility of the proposed SAWMRG was verified through a set of performance evaluations, confirming the theoretical predictions. (Some figures in this article are in colour only in the electronic version) 1