TECHNICAL FIELD

This disclosure relates generally to the field of precision timing references, and more specifically to an improved system for mitigating adverse effects of vibration and acceleration on crystal or MEMS-based oscillators. This disclosure can also be applied to inertial sensors, magnetometers and other electronic components whose performance is degraded by vibration and acceleration.

BACKGROUND

Vibration is an important factor for frequency control and timing applications (e.g., in MEMS applications) because vibration causes significant phase noise, which reduces the bandwidth in communication systems, compromises slow speed detection in radar systems, and can significantly reduce the frequency stability in a range of other important applications. Current state of the art systems use two methods for dealing with this problem: i) a vibration compensation system using an accelerometer for closed loop compensation which is effective for low-frequency vibrations (0-200 Hz for example), and ii) a passive vibration isolator which filters higher frequency vibrations (>200 Hz for example). As illustrated inFIG. 1, these two methods can be combined in order to enable device with low vibration sensitivity to all outside vibration frequencies. It may be particularly desirable to compensate for vibration from 10 Hz to 2000 Hz since most vehicles (ground such as trucks, and aerial such as helicopters, drones or planes) impart vibration in those frequency bands. Furthermore, high performance devices such as quartz oscillators require ovens to precisely hold their temperature constant during operation. The combination of the oven and the vibration compensation/isolator make the entire system very large and expensive to implement.

