Digital Inclinometer Based On Integration Of Multiple MEMS Accelerometers

Inclinometer is the instrument using for measuring the angle of the under tested plane. Inclinometer have been broadly used in surveying equipment, construction machinery, equipment installation, roads and bridges, antenna positioning, robotics, tanks and artillery platforms ship controlling, automotive electronic controlling, monitoring and other aspects of offshore platforms. In order to make inclinometer have very high accuracy in angle range of 0～360°, this paper presents a new layout scheme of accelerometers. Based on the characteristics of the output signal of accelerometers, this paper designes a new method of angle calculation and realized the hardware and software systems. The large number of experimental results show that the digital inclinometer based on integration of multiple MEMS accelerometers have reached a higher level in measurement range and accuracy , so it has important value for engineering application.The main content and innovation of this paper:(1) Doing extensive research on the situation of the inclinometer-conducted at home and abroad. Making in-depth analysis on the layout of the two main sensor devices in inclinometer. Combined the mathematical theory and practical experience, we described the advantages and disadvantages of the two typical MEMS accelerometer layout scheme in detail .(2) For the lack of performance of existing digital inclinometer, combined with MEMS accelerometer's features of output signals, we proposed a new MEMS accelerometer layout scheme—multiple accelerometers symmetrical layout scheme . on this basis, we introduced confidence intervals and the concept of confidence accelerometer and the method of determining the only confidence accelerometer. According to the calculating angle of the the only confidence accelerometer and the geometry relationships of the multiple accelerometers, we can calculate the exact angle value of under tested plane.(3) Completed the hardware and software implementation of the digital inclinometer based on integration of multiple MEMS accelerometers. In the system design, Atmega128L SCM collects the output signals of five accelerometers by interrupt means , and send data information to the host computer through the serial port . Host computer runs algorithms to calculate the angle value and displays angle of the measurement results by the way of three-dimensional dynamic display of visual.