Vibration step test for performance analysis of inertial measurement unit

Nowadays Inertial Measurement Units are largely implemented in several applications, such as automotive and self-driving vehicles, Unmanned Aerial Vehicles, cellular phones, robotics, artificial intelligence and many others. Despite this, recent literature doesn't cover properly both the characterization of the dynamical metrological performances and the reliability analysis when microelectronic devices operate under real environmental conditions. Trying to fill this gap, the characterization of an Inertial Measurement Unit under vibration condition is proposed in this work by means of a step-test vibration profile to test the behavior of an inertial platform subjected to a sinusoidal vibration at different frequencies. Starting from the widely known sine sweep vibration profile, a customized test plan has been developed basing on a frequency step up of a sinusoidal stimulus over time to investigate the frequency response of the inertial platforms. The application to a set of real devices has confirmed that the proposed test allows identifying the effects of mechanical stress on the metrological performances of microelectromechanical sensors over a frequency domain. The developed test plan could also be used to investigate whether or not sinusoidal vibrations at certain frequencies trigger some failure mechanisms that are normally quiescent.