Micromachined gas inertial sensor based on convection heat transfer

A micromachined gas inertial sensor based on the principle of convection heat transfer is presented in the paper. The configuration of the sensor consists of a small silicon etched cavity, a suspended central heater and four suspended thermistor wires, all of which are assembled and packaged in a hermetic chamber. The sensor has similar configuration with known thermal accelerometers, but is different and novel because it is not only as a dual-axis accelerometer but also as a single-axis gyroscope. Numerical simulations and primary experiments are performed to validate the effectiveness of the sensor.