The Silicon Oscillating Accelerometer: A MEMS Inertial Instrument for Strategic Missile Guidance

The intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBM) and submarine-launched ballistic missiles (SLBM) developed over the past 50 years have employed successive generations of increasingly accurate inertial guidance systems. The comparatively short time of guided flight and high acceleration levels characteristic of the ballistic missile application place a premium on accelerometer performance to achieve desired weapon system accuracy. To date, the accelerometer design of choice for strategic missiles has been the Pendulous Integrating Gyroscopic Accelerometer (PIGA) instrument, an accelerometer whose origins trace back to the German V2 rocket, and has been refined through several generations of development to achieve unsurpassed performance. The specialized technologies of PIGA accelerometers, such as gas bearing wheels, ultra-stable ball bearings, precision electromagnetic components, and "designer chemical " flotation fluids require a costly support infrastructure for production and system life-cycle maintenance. Draper Laboratory is currently in the process of developing the Silicon