A high-sensitivity MEMS gravimeter with a large dynamic range

Abstract

Precise measurement of variations in the local gravitational acceleration is valuable for natural hazard forecasting, prospecting, and geophysical studies. Common issues of the present gravimetry technologies include their high cost, high mass, and large volume, which can potentially be solved by micro-electromechanical-system (MEMS) technology. However, the reported MEMS gravimeter does not have a high sensitivity and a large dynamic range comparable with those of the present commercial gravimeters, lowering its practicability and ruling out worldwide deployment. In this paper, we introduce a more practical MEMS gravimeter that has a higher sensitivity of 8 μGal/√Hz and a larger dynamic range of 8000 mGal by using an advanced suspension design and a customized optical displacement transducer. The proposed MEMS gravimeter has performed the co-site earth tides measurement with a commercial superconducting gravimeter GWR iGrav with the results showing a correlation coefficient of 0.91.