Carlo Valzasina

Advanced Model for Fast Assessment of Piezoelectric Micro Energy Harvesters

The purpose of this work is to present recent advances in modelling and design of piezoelectric energy harvesters, in the framework of Micro-Electro-Mechanical Systems (MEMS). More specifically, the case of inertial energy harvesting is considered, in the sense that the kinetic energy due to environmental vibration is transformed into electrical energy by means of piezoelectric transduction. The execution of numerical analyses is greatly important in order to predict the actual behaviour of MEMS devices and to carry out the optimization process. In the common practice, the results are obtained by means of burdensome 3D Finite Element Analyses (FEA). The case of beams could be treated by applying 1D models, which can enormously reduce the computational burden with obvious benefits in the case of repeated analyses. Unfortunately, the presence of piezoelectric coupling may entail some serious issues in view of its intrinsically three-dimensional behaviour. In this paper, a refined, yet simple, model is proposed with the objective of retaining the Euler-Bernoulli beam model, with the inclusion of effects connected to the actual three-dimensional shape of the device. The proposed model is adopted to evaluate the performances of realistic harvesters, both in the case of harmonic excitation and for impulsive loads.

Single-Structure Micromachined Three-Axis Gyroscope With Reduced Drive-Force Coupling

This letter presents a micromachined silicon three-axis gyroscope based on a triple tuning-fork structure utilizing a single vibrating element. The mechanical approach proposed in this letter uses a secondary “auxiliary” mass rather than a major “proof” mass to induce motion in the proof mass frame for Coriolis force coupling to the sense mode. These auxiliary masses reduce the unwanted mechanical coupling of force and motion from the drive mode to the three sense modes. The experimental data show that the bias error due to coupling is reduced by a factor up to 10, and the bias instability of each sense axis is reduced by a factor of up to 3 when the gyroscope is actuated using the auxiliary masses rather than the major masses. The gyroscope exhibits a bias instability of 0.016°/s, 0.004°/s, and 0.043°/s for the x-, y-, and z-sense modes, respectively. Furthermore, initial temperature characterization results show that the gyroscope actuated by the auxiliary masses ensures a better bias instability performance in each sense axis over a temperature range from 10 °C to 50 °C in comparison with the gyroscope actuated by the major masses.

Integrated structure for a resonant micro-gyroscope and accelerometer

This paper presents the study of the mechanical behavior of a microstructure designed to detect acceleration and angular velocity simultaneously. The new resonant micro-sensor proposed, fabricated by the ThELMA

Development of a complete model to evaluate the Zero Rate Level drift over temperature in MEMS Coriolis Vibrating Gyroscopes

This paper presents a comprehensive model to analytically estimate the Zero Rate Level variation over temperature in micro machined Coriolis Vibratory Gyroscopes with associated electronics, with the goal of providing solid guidelines for the development of high stability MEMS Inertial Measurement Units. In fact, ZRL stability over temperature is a key parameter in various applications, especially when the gyroscope output is integrated such as in Pedestrian Dead Reckoning and indoor navigation applications. This paper describes in details the model developed, underlines design trade-offs and shows the good agreement between model predictions and experimental results on one available device.