Suppression of the resonance of vacuum-sealed accelerometers: A comparison of two different strategies

Damping effects are commonly used to design accelerometers. In the case of inertial combo sensor, the cointegration of accelerometers and gyrometers within the same process flow requires vacuum sealing, thus the damping of the accelerometer has to be effective in vacuum. In this paper, we compare experimentally two approaches to suppress the resonance of an accelerometer at 1 mbar, respectively based on squeeze-film damping and electromechanical coupling with a dissipative electronic circuit. The intentional damping of the structures are experimentally evidenced. The damping ratio is increased to almost 1 using both strategies.