This paper reports modeling a new design of Thermal MEMS gyroscope through the use of the Comsol Multiphysics software package. Being very small and having no movable parts have made thermal MEMS gyroscope very practical. Previously designed Thermal MEMS gyroscope shows some limitation such as being vulnerable to gravity force. Finding a technique to increase the range of thermal MEMS gyroscope reliability motivated us to come up with a new design that we will refer to as the ‘Forced Convection MEMS gyroscope’. A two-dimensional finite-element model of the device has been developed to investigate its performance. An external force has been introduced to the system to create a higher-velocity hot gas stream that will be deviated more in response to rotation. The external force should be great enough that convection currents resulting from gravity or acceleration will have minimal impact on the gyroscope sensitivity. A heating element can still be used, but its primary purpose is now to warm the flowing gas so that it can be detected by the sensors. In this paper we will also show that, in order to completely eliminate the impact of gravity and increase the sensitivity of the gyroscope, it is possible to eliminate the heaters entirely and instead use heated sensors to detect gas currents. In other words, the sensors are working as hot-wire anemometers. Our simulations suggest that this design variant results in higher sensitivity. We have also carried out optimization studies to identify the best location for the heaters and sensors.
A prototype of this device has been fabricated based on MEMS techniques, and an external pump is used to produce an oscillating gas flow within the device.
