Self-compensation of temperature drift for MEMS resonant pressure sensors based on dynamic Joule heating modulation

Abstract

This paper proposes and experimentally validates an active temperature drift compensation method for electrostatic actuation-piezoresistive detection microelectromechanical systems (MEMS) resonant pressure sensors. The method dynamically adjusts the voltage across the sensing piezoresistors to actively regulate the local temperature and thermal stress distribution of the resonant beam using the generated Joule heating effect, thereby offsetting the frequency drift caused by changes in ambient temperature. Experimental results show that the dynamic compensation scheme can significantly reduce the frequency drift of the sensor from 168 to 8.5 Hz within the wide temperature range of −45–85 °C, and the maximum fitting error within the full temperature range and full pressure range (10 kPa–5 MPa) is only 0.0058% FS. In addition, the scheme improves the quality factor (Q-factor) and short-term frequency stability of the sensor at high temperatures. This work provides a low-complexity and high-efficiency dynamic self-compensation solution for achieving high-precision and high-stability MEMS resonant sensors.