SBIR-STTR Award

This Small Business Innovation Research Program (SBIR) Phase I project is to demonstrate the feasibility of the environment resistant resonant sensor (ERRS) process which will enable a next generation of high performance and high reliability sensors. In the last 5 years, microelectromechanical systems (MEMS) inertial (motion) sensors have exploded into a wide range of consumer applications because they can be manufactured for <$1 and are small enough to be integrated into mobile devices. In contrast, MEMS and other inertial sensors used in industrial, aerospace and military applications are significantly larger, more power hungry and extremely costly. This is because these devices require 50 to 100,000× better resolution/measurement stability (bias stability) and high reliability. MEMS gyroscopes (which measure angle change) have extreme difficulty achieving these performance levels because of their need for low vacuum pressure and their high temperature and vibration sensitivity. The ERRS process will address these challenges, with low vacuum pressures and a built in low-power oven and vibration isolation platform. Gyroscopes fabricated in the ERRS process are targeting state of the art performance (bias stabilities of 10 down to 0.01º/hour) at 1/100th the size (0.1 cubic centimeters (cc)) and 1/10th the price of currently available gyroscopes. The broader impact/commercial potential of this project will be to enable a next generation of cost efficient, high performance and high reliability applications enabled by inertial (motion) sensors. Inertial sensors have already had a huge impact in the cell phone and gaming industries because of their small size and cost efficiency. The work conducted here will enable extremely high performance gyroscopes (which measure angle change) for a host of commercial, military, aerospace and scientific endeavors. These include: handheld navigation systems for firefighters and troops; navigation of unmanned air vehicles for police, military and commercial applications such as real estate; motion control for industrial robots; precise satellite pointing for broadband internet; and targeting and navigation systems for every troop in the field. These sensors can also be used for surgical robots and wheel chair control. Scientific applications would include precise telescope pointing for terrestrial and space telescopes which look into space and to the earth (for studying the climate). This will also enable researchers to purchase state of the art motion control sensors for developing other new applications

The broader impact/commercial potential of this Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Phase II project is an environment resistant inertial measurement unit (eIMU) for commercial/industrial applications. This eIMU is a miniaturized navigation device that will enable enhanced GPS navigation down to centimeter accuracy and will replace GPS when it is not available or reliable. The eIMU will enable navigation directly to specific items in malls, grocery stores or department stores. It will also enable reliable navigation for police or fire fighters inside buildings in emergency situations. This navigation chip would enable a wide range of precision manufacturing and assembly robots. It would also enable the navigation of autonomous vehicles that can be used by police and homeland security in addition to commercial applications, such as real estate and smart agriculture. The eIMU could also be used to help map mines and to aid in oil exploration. In the medical industry, the eIMU could be used for surgical robots and wheel chairs. Scientific applications include miniaturize micro- and nano- satellites; and autonomous vehicles for underwater exploration. Overall, the eIMU targets making precision navigation small and affordable enough to be used throughout our society for enhanced industrial, security, scientific and personal applications.This Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Phase II project develops a new environment resistant inertial measurement unit (eIMUs). Inertial measurement units (IMUs) consist of accelerometers and gyroscopes which work together for navigation and orientation measurements. Microelectromechanical systems (MEMS) inertial (motion) sensors are now used for a wide range of consumer applications, but can?t be used for precision navigation because of their extreme environmental sensitivity. In particular, the measurement (bias) stability of these sensors is extremely sensitive to temperature, humidity and stress?making it very challenging to us them for precision navigation and machine control. The proposed eIMU will address this by building a micromachined physics package around the sensitive MEMS sensors in order to actively control their environment independent of environmental factors. The technical challenges include: i) developing a process for reliably assembling the IMU dies in to the physics package; ii) optimizing the physics package for temperature stability and in order to prevent it from introducing any noise to the IMU and; iii) optimizing software algorithms for reducing the power required for environmentally stabilizing the IMU. This packaging technology will also be generic and applicable to other sensor systems and technologies.