Research on Adjusting Mass Balance of Micromachined Quartz Tuning Fork Gyroscopes

To eliminate the mechanical coupling error caused between the driving fork and the picking up fork, the mass balancing method was used to decrease the mechanical coupling error by the laser etching frequency trimming technique on tuning forks. In order to get high-quality quartz tuning forks, the mechanical coupling error and frequency drift caused by machining must be resolved. The mechanical coupling error was eliminated effectively by the mass balancing method that could compensate the machining error and realize the control of the quartz tuning fork gyroscope at the best resonant frequency. Experimental results showed that, by the mass balancing method, when the symmetry of driving tuning forks and readout tuning forks was amended, the quality factor of driving forks was obviously increased, the driving voltage descended, the mechanical coupling error decreased and the impedance characteristics of quartz tuning fork was improved obviously.