Theoretical Modeling for a Six-DOF Vortex Inertial Sensor and Experimental Verification

This paper reports on a multi-axis fluidic inertial sensor that can detect three components of angular rate and linear acceleration. The sensor uses a vortex gas flow instead of the traditional linear gas flow as the inertial mass to detect the angular rate and linear acceleration. For this complex multi-axis sensing scheme, the theoretical modeling for the sensitivity and the cross-axis sensitivity of the sensor are discussed in detail. During the verification of the sensor´s performance, the vortex was created by jetting the air supplied by an external air pump into a detection chamber via two opposing nozzle orifices in opposite directions. A configuration of microfabricated thermistors was constructed to realize multi-axis detection. The measured sensitivities of the gyroscope for the x-axis, y-axis, and z-axis were 0.429, 0.338, and 0.159 mV/^°/s, respectively. The measured sensitivities of the accelerometer for the x-axis, y-axis, and z-axis were 0.185, 0.180, and 0.133 V/g, respectively. The results prove that the vortex sensor can effectively detect six-degree-of-freedom spatial motion.