Design and development of a MEMS vibrating ring resonator with inner rose petal spring supports

This paper presents a novel MEMS based ring resonator design inspired by the rose petal structure. The proposed design has four petal springs supporting the ring structure surrounded by sense electrodes, with a stem in the middle offering simplicity in fabrication and easy control of movement in the driving and sensing modes. An equation was developed to calculate the stiffness of the support springs, and the stiffness of the proposed design was analyzed and compared to other design parameters. The key geometric elements, such as the petals and the ring dimensions of the proposed design, were selected using finite element modeling techniques to enhance the sensitivity for gyroscope application. The resonance frequencies for different mode shapes were optimized by changing the geometric parameters of the proposed structure. Simulation showed that the proposed design has degenerate mode shapes (with potentially 0 Hz frequency splitting) at resonance frequencies in the range of 25–74 kHz, controlled by increasing the structure’s width from 10 to 30 µm. Scaled-down prototypes of the selected design were fabricated using a customized surface micromachining process. The results of the experiment show that the prototype has a resonance frequency at 64.91 kHz which validates the resonance frequency of the computational model at 64.89 kHz of the same prototype. Good agreement between the simulation and experimental model showed the proof of concept of the design and successful fabrication process