Characterization of inertial measurement units under environmental stress screening

Nowadays, the Micro Electro-Mechanical Systems (MEMS) are widely employed in both consumer and industrial applications. One of the most important fields adopting MEMS device is the inertial measurement sector where this kind of technology is employed to produce Inertial Measurement Unit (IMU) that are typically composed by a triaxial accelerometer, a triaxial gyroscope, and a triaxial magnetometer. The growth of the MEMS is due to their small dimension and cost, challenges that enable their use in several applications belonging from Industry 4.0 to automotive and aerospace. However, all these sectors have in common operating conditions characterized by wide temperatures range and vibrations of different nature. In this framework, both the scientific and technical literature seems lacks suitable measurement procedures to be applied for testing the reliability of such kind of devices under environmental stress. So, this paper proposes a test procedure for Environmental Stress Screening (ESS) to determine any mechanical and electrical weakness or early degradation in a MEMS-based inertial measurement unit, when subjected to mechanical vibration and thermal cycling temperature tests