Coupled field simulation of mems tuning fork gyroscope

Abstract

The use of Microelectromechanical Systems (MEMS) based sensors has become increasingly popular due to the growing demand for miniaturization in electronics. Though developing these sensors may require multiple iterations on smaller samples, Finite Element Method (FEM) based simulations offer a viable solution by enabling the optimization of design parameters to a significant degree. A FEM based simulation methodology has been designed in this paper to incorporate electromechanical coupling in an electrostatically actuated tuning fork gyroscope using COMSOL Multiphysics. The simulation results have been compared with analytical values and an existing simulation example that combines numerical and analytical approaches. The obtained sense mode displacement values predicted by the model lie within 5% of the analytically predicted values and the values predicted by the simulation example.