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A Beginner's Guide To Accelerometers What Is An Accelerometer?

An accelerometer is a device that measures acceleration forces, either static like gravity or dynamic caused by movement. Accelerometers are useful for measuring tilt angles and motion. They can be used in applications like detecting falls, analyzing vibrations, and controlling machines. There are different types of accelerometers that use effects like piezoelectricity or capacitance to convert acceleration into a voltage. Factors to consider when choosing an accelerometer include analog vs digital output, number of axes, measurement range, sensitivity, bandwidth, and impedance.

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90 views4 pages

A Beginner's Guide To Accelerometers What Is An Accelerometer?

An accelerometer is a device that measures acceleration forces, either static like gravity or dynamic caused by movement. Accelerometers are useful for measuring tilt angles and motion. They can be used in applications like detecting falls, analyzing vibrations, and controlling machines. There are different types of accelerometers that use effects like piezoelectricity or capacitance to convert acceleration into a voltage. Factors to consider when choosing an accelerometer include analog vs digital output, number of axes, measurement range, sensitivity, bandwidth, and impedance.

Uploaded by

kitara234
Copyright
© Attribution Non-Commercial (BY-NC)
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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A beginner’s guide to accelerometers

What is an accelerometer?
An accelerometer is an electromechanical device that will
measure acceleration forces. These forces may be static, like
the constant force of gravity pulling at your feet, or they could
be dynamic - caused by moving or vibrating the accelerometer.

What are accelerometers useful for?


By measuring the amount of static acceleration due to gravity,
you can find out the angle the device is tilted at with respect to
the earth. By sensing the amount of dynamic acceleration, you
can analyze the way the device is moving.
At first, measuring tilt and acceleration doesn't seem all that
exciting. However, engineers have come up with many ways to
make really useful products using them.

An accelerometer can help your project understand its


surroundings better. Is it driving uphill? Is it going to fall over
when it takes another step? Is it flying horizontally or is it dive
bombing your professor? A good programmer can write code to
answer all of these questions using the data provided by an
accelerometer. An accelerometer can help analyze problems in
a car engine using vibration testing, or you could even use one
to make a musical instrument.

In the computing world, IBM and Apple have recently started


using accelerometers in their laptops to protect hard drives
from damage. If you accidentally drop the laptop, the
accelerometer detects the sudden freefall, and switches the
hard drive off so the heads don't crash on the platters. In a
similar fashion, high g accelerometers are the industry
standard way of detecting car crashes and deploying airbags at
just the right time.
How do accelerometers work?
There are many different ways to make an accelerometer!
Some accelerometers use the piezoelectric effect - they contain
microscopic crystal structures that get stressed by accelerative
forces, which causes a voltage to be generated. Another way to
do it is by sensing changes in capacitance. If you have two
microstructures next to each other, they have a certain
capacitance between them. If an accelerative force moves one
of the structures, then the capacitance will change. Add some
circuitry to convert from capacitance to voltage, and you will
get an accelerometer. There are even more methods, including
use of the piezoresistive effect, hot air bubbles, and light.

What things should I consider when buying an


accelerometer?
Analog vs digital - First and foremost, you must choose
between an accelerometer with analog outputs or digital
outputs. This will be determined by the hardware that you are
interfacing the accelerometer with. Analog style accelerometers
output a continuous voltage that is proportional to acceleration.
E.g. 2.5V for 0g, 2.6V for 0.5g, 2.7V for 1g. Digital
accelerometers usually use pulse width modulation (PWM) for
their output. This means there will be a square wave of a
certain frequency, and the amount of time the voltage is high
will be proportional to the amount of acceleration.

If you are using a BASIC Stamp, or any other microcontroller


with purely digital inputs, you will most likely need to go for a
digital output accelerometer. The disadvantage here is that it
requires you to use the timing resources of the microcontroller
to measure the duty cycle, as well as performing a
computationally intensive division operation.
If you are using a PIC/AVR/OOPIC/Javelin with analog inputs,
or a completely analog based circuit, analog is almost always
the best way to go. Depending on the compiler, measuring
analog acceleration can be as simple as
acceleration=read_adc(); and can be done in a few
microseconds.

Number of axis - For most projects, two is enough. However, if


you want to attempt 3d positioning, you will need a 3 axis
accelerometer, or two 2 axis ones mounted at right angles.

Maximum swing - If you only care about measuring tilt using


earth's gravity, a ±1.5g accelerometer will be more than
enough. If you are going to use the accelerometer to measure
the motion of a car, plane or robot, ±2g should give you
enough headroom to work with. For a project that experiences
very sudden starts or stops, you will need one that can handle
±5g or more.

Sensitivity - Generally speaking, the more sensitivity the


better. This means that for a given change in acceleration,
there will be a larger change in signal. Since larger signal
changes are easier to measure, you will get more accurate
readings.

Bandwidth - This means the amount of times per second you


can take a reliable acceleration reading. For slow moving tilt
sensing applications, a bandwidth of 50Hz will probably suffice.
If you intend to do vibration measurement, or control a fast
moving machine, you will want a bandwidth of several hundred
Hz.

Impedance/buffering issues - This is by far the single most


common source of problems in projects involving analog
accelerometers, because so few people thoroughly read the
required documentation. Both PIC and AVR datasheets specify
that for A-D conversion to work properly, the connected device
must have an output impedance under 10kΩ. Unfortunately,
Analog Devices' analog accelerometers have an output
impedance of 32kΩ. The solution to this is to use a low input
offset rail to rail op amp as a buffer to lower the output
impedance. As far as we know, the DE-ACCM is the only
accelerometer solution that takes care of this problem for you.

Where can I find more information on accelerometers?


Texas instruments has a great accelerometer guide, including
how to do some of the necessary math.
The DE-ACCM datasheet has several examples of how you can
use accelerometer readings to determine tilt and acceleration
values.
The Parallax forum has information on how to use their PWM
based accelerometer.
If you really want to get into the hardcore low level details of
accelerometers, and want to try soldering surface mount
packages, Analog Devices has a huge selection of datasheets
covering both analog and digital PWM style devices.

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