Resolution improvement of Low-Cost MEMS accelerometer by aligning Simulations sensors

Abstract

Nowadays, accelerometers are being used in various civil engineering applications. Their versatility made them desirable in many Structural Health Monitoring (SHM) application. A significant issue with their use is the fact that traditional commercial accelerometers are very expensive. Moreover, the low-cost solutions are not very accurate.To tackle this drawback and to enable low-cost accelerometers applicable to more SHM applications, a novel methodology for improving the resolution of low-cost MEMS accelerometers is presented in this paper. To this end the noise density level of more than one accelerometer was controlled by aligning on the same location for reading the same input wave.The results of the performed laboratory tests showed that the higher the number of aligned accelerometers the lower the reported noise. Aligning a higher number of accelerometers also improve.the system's final resolution in frequency domain diagrams.