Navigation grade MEMS Gyro

There is an increasing need to accurately measure movement and position in a broad range of applications including aerospace, automotive, robotics, underwater to name a few. Key to this are Inertial Navigation systems that do not rely on global positioning systems to measure movement and determine location. Within Inertial Navigation systems, the key technology is the Inertial Measurement Unit (IMU). An IMU is a combination of 3-axis accelerometers and 3-axis gyroscopes. Accuracy and specifically Bias Instability are key to delivering accurate positioning. Presently the high end IMU market is serviced by Fibre Optic Gyroscopes but these are large in size and costly. MEMS sensors have long been seen as a potential solution to this due to their small size and ability to be manufactured in large volumes. However, the present capacitance-based MEMS sensors do not have the performance required for the high-end IMU market.

Silicon Microgravity is a spin-out of Cambridge University which is developing high-end accelerometers and gyroscopes based on its resonant vibrating beam MEMS technology. This project builds on its work on accelerometers and gravity sensors to develop a Navigation grade MEMS gyroscope with a Bias Instability of 0.01°/hr. This would be a breakthrough technology allowing MEMS for the first time to compete directly with solutions hitherto the preserve of specialised fibre optic gyroscopes.