High Performance MEMS Accelerometer Based on Tunable Stiffness Mechanism

Speaker:  Ruihong Xiong

Time:      15:00, Dec. 28

Location: SIST 2-215

Host:      Tao Wu 

Abstract:

MEMS accelerometers are widely used in various fields, including automotive safety systems, consumer electronics, healthcare, environmental monitoring, structural safety, and aerospace and defense applications. Different application areas impose varying performance requirements on accelerometers, such as resolution, dynamic range, and nonlinearity. Based on performance demands, MEMS accelerometers can be categorized into three levels: consumer-grade, tactical-grade, and navigation-grade. High-performance accelerometers are essential for applications such as inertial navigation and guidance systems, seismic monitoring, oil exploration, and Earth's gravity field measurement, where accelerometers with sub-µg resolution are required. This level of resolution corresponds to one-millionth of Earth's gravitational acceleration. In addition to high resolution, micro-vibration measurement applications, such as seismic monitoring and oil exploration, often demand accelerometers with a large dynamic range. However, high-resolution accelerometers typically suffer from limited linear operating range and dynamic range, which restricts their applicability in high-performance micro-vibration measurement systems. This research focuses on developing high-resolution, large-dynamic-range MEMS accelerometers for high-performance inertial micro-vibration measurement applications. The approach is based on tunable stiffness mechanisms, particularly at the micro- and nanoscale, enabling the realization of tunable stiffness structures for MEMS accelerometers to achieve both high resolution and large dynamic range.

Bio:

Ruihong Xiong received the B.S. degree in electrical engineering from Nanchang University, Nanchang, China, in 2020. He is currently pursuing a Doctor's degree in electrical engineering at ShanghaiTech University, Shanghai, China. His research interests focus on the design and development of micromachine inertia sensor and multi-physics microsystems.