Model reduction and analysis of a vibrating beam microgyroscope

The present work is concerned with the nonlinear dynamic analysis of a vibrating beam microgyroscope composed of a rotating cantilever beam with a tip mass at its end. The rigid mass is coupled to two orthogonal electrodes in the drive and sense directions, which are attached to the rotating base. The microbeam is driven by an AC voltage in the drive direction, which induces vibrations in the orthogonal sense direction due to rotation about the microbeam axis. The electrode placed in the sense direction is used to measure the induced motions and extract the underlying angular speed. A reduced-order model of the gyroscope is developed using the method of multiple scales and used to examine its dynamic behavior. © The Author(s) 2012 Reprints and permissions: sagepub.co.uk/journalsPermissions.nav.