A Novel Two-Dimensional Model for Micro Thermal Expansion-based Gyroscopes towards Parametric Analysis and Efficient Optimization

We report, for the first time, a novel two-dimensional (2D) model for the micro thermal expansion-based gyroscope (μTEG) to predict the sensor's performance, which has been validated by the experimental results. Scaling analysis on the sensor's performance characteristics by this model enables the optimization of μTEG design, including the normalized distances between the heater and temperature detectors in two directions, the thin film thickness, the heater width, the cavity depth and the heater temperature, to achieve extremely high sensitivity (11.78 mV/°/s) and low power consumption (12.8mW). According to the analysis by 2D model, the sensitivity of the optimized μTEGs by using the working gases (SF6 and C4F8) with larger density, better than the best published μTEG (1.287 mV/°/s) by one order of magnitude, can reach the level of the commercial product (>6 mV/°/s). In particular, our new 2D model can significantly save the CPU time in comparison with the conventional CFD model (1.92s versus 5h) to realize the efficient systematical optimization of the key design parameters. Thus, the proposed 2D model can be a useful tool for μTEGs' system-level designs for industrial IoT applications.