Flat Quartz Angular Rate Sensor for Automotive Applications

A newly designed, flat, angular-rate sensor consisting of T-shaped vibrating resonators using a single quartz crystal has been developed for automotive, chassis-control systems and vehicle navigation systems. For these systems, the sensor is required to be highly stable under operating conditions. Our newly developed sensor's performance is highly reliable because the resonator is made of quartz that is highly stable under operating conditions, especially temperature changes.

The newly developed quartz angular sensor is easy to fabricate because it has a 2-dimensional structure. This structure facilitates the mass production of the sensor at low cost; a requirement for automotive industry use. The flat sensor (0.3mm thick) is fabricated from z-cut quartz and shows promising performance for automotive applications. The flat structure also has the advantage of being easily mounted in flat, narrow spaces.