Performance Trade-offs of an Interferometric Micro-g Resolution Accelerometer

A high resolution bulk micromachined accelerometer based on transmission-type intrinsic Fabry-Perot interferometer has been experimentally evaluated via direct inertial characterization for the first time. The device characterization includes frequency and time domain evaluation. The sensor characteristics of bandwidth, range, sensitivity, and resolution are obtained and the trade-offs between these performance characteristics are examined. The sensor performance, which approaches its theoretical limit with a maximum resolution of 2.9 mug is obtained, demonstrating inertial navigation grade performance.