The Development of a MEMS Gyroscope for

Absolute Angle Measurement

Damrongrit Piyabongkarn and Rajesh Rajamani
Department of Mechanical Engineering
University of Minnesota
Minneapolis, MN 55455
Abstract
MEMS gyroscopes are typically designed to measure angular
rate of rotation. A measurement of the angle itself is useful in many
applications but cannot be obtained by integrating the angular rate
due to the presence of bias errors which cause a drift. This paper
presents an innovative design for a vibrating gyroscope that can
directly measure both angle and angular rate. The design is based
on the principle of measuring the angle of free vibration of a
suspended mass with respect to the casing of the gyroscope. Several
critical challenges have to be handled before the theoretical sensing
concept can be converted into a reliable practical sensor. These
include compensating for the presence of dissipative forces,
mismatched springs, cross-axis stiffness and transmission of rotary
torque. These challenges are addressed by the development of a
composite nonlinear feedback control systemthat compensates for
each of the above effects and ensures that the mass continues to
behave as a freely vibrating structure. Theoretical analysis and
simulation results presented in the paper show that the gyroscope
can accurately measure both angle and angular rate for low
bandwidth applications.
Keywords: MEMS, gyroscope, angle measurement, angular rate
1. INTRODUCTION
Gyroscopes have played an important role in aviation, space
exploration and military applications (Lawrence, 1998, [1]). Until
recently, high cost and large size made their use in automobiles and
other consumer products prohibitive. With the advent of Micro-
Electro-Mechanical Systems (MEMS), gyroscopes and other
inertial measurement devices can now be produced cheaply and in
very small packages in the micro domain. An example of this are
the MEMS accelerometers now used in some automobiles to detect
collisions for air bag deployment (Eddy, et. al., 1998 [2]).
In order to estimate the absolute angle, , with a traditional
MEMS rate-gyroscope, one would have to integrate the angular rate
signal with respect to time. The problemwith this method is that
bias errors in the angular rate signal from the gyroscope will
inevitably cause the integrated angle value to drift over time, since
all gyroscopes have at least a small amount of bias error in their
angular rate signal. This paper develops a sensor design to directly
measure absolute angle. The design can also be combined with
traditional angular rate measurement to provide a sensor in an
integrated package that measures both angle and angular rate.
There are a large number of applications where a gyroscope
that can measure angle would be useful. A common application is
measurement of the heading or orientation of a highway vehicle.
The measurement of orientation is useful in computer-controlled
steering of the vehicle as well as in differential braking systems
being developed by automotive manufacturers for vehicle skid
control (Rajamani, et. al., 2000, [3], Tseng, at. al., 1999, [4]).
An important additional benefit of the proposed design is
that it would also contribute towards improving the accuracy of
the regular rate gyroscopes (see section 5). The proposed design
is novel in that it breaks new ground by introducing sophisticated
control systems into the MEMS domain. It is the use of
advanced control techniques that leads to a new sensor making
the measurement of a new variable (absolute angle) possible.
A number of researchers and research groups have worked
on MEMS vibratory-rate gyroscopes. A good description of the
working of a basic angular rate gyroscope can be found in Clark,
et.al. [5]. Here the gyroscope consisted of a single mass
oscillating longitudinally with rotation induced lateral deflections
being sensed capacitively. A summary of the basic working
principle of an angular rate gyroscope is also provided below in
section 2.
The bulk of literature on MEMS vibratory gyroscopes deals
with different embodiments of the above basic sensing concept
described in [5]. There are varying designs and implementation
using a number of different fabrication processes. Bernstein,
et.al.[6] demonstrated a tuning fork gyroscope using two masses
that oscillate laterally. An external oscillation induced oscillation
out of plane of the device. Boeing is now developing a
commercial version of this device. J uneau, et. al. [7]
demonstrated a dual-axis gyroscope which could simultaneously
measure two rotational rates. It consisted of a rotating disk in
which deflection induced by rotations about two axes were
measured out of plane of the device. A gyroscope based on a
vibrating ring was demonstrated by Putty, et. al. [8]. The work
by Kranz, et. al., [9] focused on a new one-mass-inside-another
design that reduced measurement errors due to mechanical cross-
talk.
All of the above results relate to gyroscopes that measure
angular rate. None of the above results have developed a
gyroscope that measures absolute angle.
2. BACKGROUND ON THE WORKING OF ANGULAR-
RATE MEMS GYROSCOPES
The traditional suspended mass vibrating gyroscope consists
of a mass suspended by elastic members that allow it to travel in
both the x and y directions as shown in Fig. 1a. The MEMS
embodiment of such a suspended mass gyroscope is shown in
Fig. 1b [10]. The equations of motion for such a systemcan be
represented by
m
x
F
y y x x
m
x
c
x
x
x + + + + = D
D D D D
D D D 2
2 2
(1)
m
y
F
x x y y
m
y
c
y
y
y + + = D
D D D D
D D D 2
2 2
(2)
2
where
m
x
k
x
=
2

,
m
y
k
y
=
2

,
x x
m
x
c 2 = ,
y y
m
y
c 2 = and
is the rotation of the gyroscope casing and
x
F and
y
F
are
controlled forces applied to the mass in the x and y directions
respectively. In order to measure the angular rate with this
gyroscope, the x mode is driven sinusoidally using
x
F at an
amplitude of F
d
and a frequency of
d
. The frequency
d
is
usually significantly higher than the specified bandwidth of the
gyroscope. At this high frequency, the terms
2

D
x ,
2

D
y ,
D D
y and

D D
x are small and can often be neglected [5]. If necessary these
terms can also be appropriately compensated for by using the forces
x
F and
y
F . The equations of motion are then given by
m
x
F
y x
m
x
c
x
x
x + + = D
D
D D D 2
2
(1a)
m
y
F
x y
m
y
c
y
y
y + = D
D
D D D 2
2
(2a)
mass
2 /
x
k 2 /
x
k
2 /
x
c 2 /
x
c
2 /
y
c 2 /
y
k
x
y
2 /
y
k 2 /
y
c
x
F
y
F
(a)
(b)
Fig. 1 Suspended mass vibrating gyroscope
(a) Schematic diagram of a vibratory gyroscope
(b) Vibratory-rate gyroscope fabricated in
the MCNC MUMPs process [10]
When the gyroscope experiences an external angular
velocity, =
D
, the xD 2 termin equation (2a) causes the y mode
to vibrate at the driven frequency
d
with an amplitude that is
proportional to the angular rate, . By demodulating the y output
signal at the driven frequency, the value of the angular rate can
be obtained.
Note that y axis motion can also be caused by several other
sources, including external forces and initial conditions. By
measuring the y axis motion at only the driven frequency
d
,
we isolate the effect of the angular rotation on y axis motion.
Thus, angular rate can be measured accurately in spite of other
external disturbances.
3. ANGLE MEASUREMENT
The proposed design for angle measurement is based on the
principle of measuring the angle of free vibration of a suspended
mass with respect to the casing of the gyroscope. The idea behind
the methodology is as follows. If the mass is given an initial
condition so that it vibrates in a known direction, the angle, ,
of the gyroscope in the global frame can be determined by
keeping track of the angle, , of the direction of vibration of the
mass in the local frame (see Fig. 2). When the gyroscope
experiences a rotation in the global frame the mass continues to
vibrate in the same direction with respect to the global frame.
Fig. 2. Mass motion with initial x-axis oscillation
Since this method relies on the free vibration of the mass,
the presence of any damping will drive the motion of the mass to
zero. To overcome the affects of damping, energy needs to be
added to the system. The energy will be added by using
actuators to apply small forces to the x and y modes proportional
to the x and y velocities respectively. Such forces could
counteract the damping in the system. If it were possible to
select forces that would counteract the damping exactly (i.e.
addition of negative damping), the mass would sustain free
vibration indefinitely. However it is not possible to select such
forces because of the changing damping of the system,
manufacturing imperfections, temperature fluctuations and the
presence of other energy loss mechanisms in the system. If the
negative damping were chosen too large, the amplitude of motion
will become unbounded, and if it were chosen too small, the
amplitude of motion will still decay. In order to overcome this
situation, a control loop is used to keep the total energy of the
systemconstant. The current energy of the systemis compared
to the desired energy of the system and an energy error termis
calculated. The forces counteracting the damping of the system
are continuously adjusted using the energy error in order to keep
the energy of the systemconstant:
3
x y
m
y
y
k
x
m
x
x
k
E
x
F D D D

=
2
2
2
2
2
2
2
2

(3)
y y
m
y
y
k
x
m
x
x
k
E
y
F D D D

=
2
2
2
2
2
2
2
2

(4)
where E is the energy set point and

+ + +
2
2
2
2
2
2
2
2
y
m
y
y
k
x
m
x
x
k
D D
represents the instantaneous
energy of the system.
In this section, we first show that this control system will
ensure that the mass vibrates with constant energy approximatly
equal to E. Equation (1) and (2) are modified to include the
specific forces
x
F and
y
F applied by the control system:
y y x x
m
x
c
x
x
x D
D D D D
D D D 2
2 2
+ + + =
x y
m
y
y
k
x
m
x
x
k
E
m
D D D

+
2
2
2
2
2
2
2
2

(5)
x x y y
m
y
c
y
y
y D
D D D D
D D D 2
2 2
+ =
y y
m
y
y
k
x
m
x
x
k
E
m
D D D

+
2
2
2
2
2
2
2
2

(6)
where is a constant positive gain. Consider the following energy
function for this system:
2
2
1
2
2
1
2
2
1
2
2
1
y
y
k x
x
k y m x m V + + + = D D
(7)
The time derivative of the energy function is:
] [ ] [ ] y
y
k y m y x
x
k x m x y y
y
k x x
x
k y y m x x m V + + + = + + + = D D D D D D D D D D D D D D
D (8)
Substituting equations (5) and (6) into equation (8) yields:
]
2 2 2 2
2 [
2 2 2 2 2
x y
m
y
k
x
m
x
k
E y m my mx x c x V
y x
x
D D D D
D D D D
D D
D

+ + + + =
]
2 2 2 2
2 [
2 2 2 2 2
y y
m
y
k
x
m
x
k
E x m mx my y c y
y x
y
D D D D
D D D D
D D

+ + +
(9)
Typical parameter values in MEMS gyroscopes are
n
=40k
rad/s and amplitudes of x and y of about 5 m. If the maximum
angular rate is 60 rad/s and maximumangular acceleration is 6000
rad/s
2
, it can be seen fromequation (9) that x
x
c D and y
y
c D are
much greater than
D D D D
my my mx ,
2
,
2
and
D D
mx . Hence the
equation (9) can be approximated by
( ) ( )y V E y
y
c y x V E x
x
c x V D D D D D D
D
+ + + = [ ] [
(10)
This can further be re-written as
E y x
y
c y
x
c x V y x V )
2 2
( ]
2 2
[ )
2 2
( D D D D D D
D
+ + + = + +
(11)
Due to the fact that )
2 2
( y x D D + is always greater than zero, the
energy function, V, has stable dynamics. The steady state of the
energy function,
ss
V , is
)
2 2
(
)
2 2
(
y x
y
c y
x
c x
E
ss
V
D D
D D
+
+
=

(12)
By selecting an appropriate positive , the steady state of
the energy function can be made close to the desired energy.
Thus the energy of the x and y modes will always remain
bounded implying that y x y x D D, , , will also remain bounded.
Figure 3 below shows the performance of the angle
measurement gyroscope. In this simulation, the gyroscope frame
experiences a ramp angular motion fromzero to 45 degrees after
which the angle remains at 45 degrees as shown in Fig. 3a. In
Fig. 3c, the line of oscillation of the gyroscope moves from0
degrees to 45 degrees in the local gyroscope frame. Fromthe
angle of this line of oscillation, the angular motion of the casing
can be inferred. The line of oscillation in the global frame (as
shown in Fig. 3d) always remains at 0 degrees. The physical
parameters used are typical values for MEMS gyroscopes [9].
The suspended mass is taken to be 0.9425e-6 g. The spring
stiffness for both x and y springs is 4180.8 and the damping
coefficient is 0.2.
(a) (b)
(c) (d)
Fig. 3 Angle measurement (a) angular motion from 0 to 45
degrees (b) x and y motion (c) motion in gyroscope frame
(d) motion in global frame
4. ANGLE MEASUREMENT IN THE PRESENCE OF
IMPERFECTION
A real MEMS gyroscope fabricated through many
microfabrication steps will not be the ideal 2-dof spring-mass
systemshown in Fig. 1. Common imperfections in fabrication
are reflected as asymmetry in spring stiffness and damping. Also,
cross-coupling forces occur along the two local axes when the
mass orientation is not the same as that of the gyroscope frame.
4
As shown in the following sub-sections, the presence of even small
imperfections can have a huge impact on the performance of the
above angle-measurement system. These imperfections must be
handled before this theoretical sensing concept can be converted
into a reliable practical sensor.
4.1 Mismatched spring stiffness compensation
If the spring stiffness is the same in both axes, x and y, the
systemis said to be isotropic. When the isotropic oscillator is
allowed to freely oscillate, the precession of the straight line of
oscillation provides a measure of the angle of rotation, as we have
seen in the previous section. However, if the spring stiffness is not
the same in both directions, the mass no longer oscillates in a
straight line even for a constant angle input. Instead the line of
oscillation keeps rotating around the frame with constant x and y
amplitudes. Figure 4 shows the simulation results in both the local
gyroscope frame and the global frame when there is a small 1%
difference in the values of
x
k and
y
k . The angle input for the
gyroscope casing is the same motion from 0 to 45 degrees as
discussed in the previous section.
(a) (b)
Fig. 4 Anisotropic oscillating
(a) motion in gyroscope frame
(b) motion in global frame
Thus even a small 1% difference between
x
k and
y
k causes
the angle of free vibration to keep changing and never reach steady
state.
There will always be some difference between
x
k and
y
k due
to manufacturing imperfections. One can attempt to compensate
for the asymmetry actively using the
x
F and
y
F actuators.
However, a direct compensation of the type
x
x
k
ref
k
x
F ) ( + = (13)
y
y
k
ref
k
y
F ) ( + = (14)
cannot solve the problemdue to noise and bias in the calculated
periodic stiffness signals,
x
k and
y
k , as well as in the force
generation of
x
F and
y
F .
The following PI control law is proposed instead.
[ ] )

( )

(
y
k
x
k
p
k
y
k
x
k
I
k x
x
F
D D
D
+ =
(15)
[ ] )

( )

(
y
k
x
k
p
k
y
k
x
k
I
k y
y
F
D D
D
+ =
(16)
where
x
k

and
y
k

are the measured stiffness values calculated

fromx and y measurement in real time.
As shown in Fig. 5, the signal frequencies can be calculated
by measuring the time interval of each half cycle:
i
t
i

=
, ,.. 3 , 2 , 1 = i (17)
Then, the stiffness values can be calculated fromthe frequencies
as
2

i
m
i
k = (18)
where k

is a periodic signal. Thus, this measuring scheme gives

us the zero bias signal, or the real stiffness value will be equal to
the mean value of the calculated signal as follow,
N
N
i
i
k
real
k

=
=
1

(19)
Fig. 5 Time interval measuring for stiffness value
The forces tune both stiffness values to be equal to each
other by integration of the difference between
x
k

and
y
k

.
Figure 6 shows the result of using the above control law in
the case where there is a 10% difference between
x
k and
y
k . It
can be seen that the control law ensures that the mass vibrates
along a steady state straight line. The angle of rotation can be
inferred fromthe angle of oscillation.
(a) (b)
Fig. 6. Stiffness tuning control, ky=1.1*kx
(a) motion in gyroscope frame
(b) motion in global frame
4.2 Addressing of cross-coupling spring stiffness
5
The spring stiffness along the two axes can change due to
rotation of the suspended mass with respect to the gyroscope frame
(Fig. 7). The ability of the springs to transmit forces perpendicular
to their axis results in cross-coupling terms. The third equation of
motion describing the rotation of the mass with respect to the
casing is the following [9],

I k I = (20)
Fig. 7 Schematic representation of a simple mass spring system
with two orthogonal modes[9]
When the mass rotates with respect to the frame the spring
stiffness in both the x and y axes is changed. For the isotropic
system, the equations of motion can be written as
y y y
m
xy
k
x x x D
D D D D
D D D 2 )
2 2
( 2 + + = + + (21)
x x x
m
xy
k
y y y D
D D D D
D D D 2 )
2 2
( 2 = + +
(22)
where
cc xy
k = , ( )
2
2
2
xy
k m
x
k = and
m
k
=
The cross-coupling forces result in ellipticity of the nominal
straight-line motion and in frequency change, as can be seen in Fig.
8.
Fig. 8 Cross-coupling stiffness effect
We can use the ability to simultaneously measure angular-rate
and the observer of Section 6 to estimate the measured angle
accurately in the presence of the above imperfection. The observer
(discussed in section 6) ensures that the angle can be accurately
estimated in spite of the elliptical motion.
5. COMBINED ANGLE AND ANGULAR-RATE
MEASUREMENT
It is possible to combine the angular rate use of a gyroscope
with its ability to also measure angle. In this case the x-axis force
is chosen to be a sumof the feedback force defined by equation
(3) at steady state and an additional sinusoidal excitation at a
driven frequency
d
:
) sin(
2
2
2
2

2
2
2
2

t
d d
F x y
m
y
y
k
x
m
x
x
k
E
x
F + =

D D D
(23)
The y-axis force remains the same as the feedback force
used for angle measurement:
y y
m
y
y
k
x
m
x
x
k
E
y
F D D D

=
2
2
2
2

2
2
2
2

(24)
In the presence of an angular rate
D
, the sinusoidal x-axis
excitation termin equation (23) causes vibrations along the y-
axis at the excitation frequency
d
. The value of the angular
rate can be obtained by demodulating the y axis motion at the
driving frequency.
In implementing the above combined system, the x and y
signals coming fromthe gyroscope need to go through a separate
band pass filter at the natural frequency in order to determine the
angle value. When running the gyroscope at both its natural
frequency and the driving frequency the relative amplitude of
oscillation at the two frequencies becomes important. It is
necessary to ensure that the driving frequency,
d
, is
sufficiently far away fromthe natural frequency of the system.
Roughly it was found that the free vibration signal provided a
good measurement of the angular motion of the gyroscope as
long as the driving frequency remained about an order of
magnitude different fromthe natural frequency.
Fig. 9 Angular rate signal.
Fig. 10 Angle signal.
6
The results of running the gyroscope with both angular rate
functionality and angle functionality are shown in Figures 9 and 10
(the input signal was a sine wave with an amplitude of 1 radian and
a frequency of 100 rad/sec).
6. OBSERVER ESTIMATION
Since angle and angular rate are both measured by the
gyroscope, a filter can be used to exploit the angular rate
measurement so as to improve the absolute angle estimates.
Consider the following observer.
)

+ =
meas
K
meas

(25)
where
meas
is the measured angle,
meas

C
is the measured
angular rate,

is the estimate of the angle,

is the estimate of the

angular rate, and K is the observer gain. A small value for K will
mean that the observer estimate is primarily obtained from
integrating the angular rate with the angle measurement error
serving mainly to correct the drift. A high value of K will mean
that the observer relies more on the direct angle measurement with
the angular rate measurement playing a role only for very high
frequency measurements.
Based on the ellipticity encountered in the angle measurement
scheme and the drift present in the angular rate measurement
scheme, the gain K can be chosen in an optimal way so as to obtain
the best possible estimates of angular motion.
Angular estimates obtained using the observer are shown in
Fig. 11.
Fig. 11. Observer estimation
7. CONCLUSIONS
MEMS gyroscope are typically designed to measure angular
rate of rotation. A measurement of the angle itself is useful in many
applications but cannot be obtained by integrating the angular rate
due to the presence of bias errors which cause a drift. This paper
presented an innovative design for a vibrating gyroscope that can
directly measure both angle and angular rate. The design was based
on the principle of measuring the angle of free vibration of a
suspended mass with respect to the casing of the gyroscope.
Several critical challenges had to be handled before the theoretical
sensing concept could be converted into a reliable practical sensor.
These included compensating for the presence of dissipative forces,
mismatched springs, cross-axis stiffness and transmission of rotary
torque. These challenges were addressed by the development of
a composite nonlinear feedback control systemthat compensated
for each of the above effects and ensured that the mass continued
to behave as a freely vibrating structure. Theoretical analysis and
simulation results presented in the paper showed that the
gyroscope can accurately measure both angle and angular rate for
low bandwidth applications.
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