Investigation of Three-Axis Accelerometer Calibration Techniques

Accelerometers are used in a variety of applications ranging from navigation systems to stand-alone tests. In each application, the accuracy of the accelerometer is crucial. There are various calibration techniques that range in precision, yet each apparatus devised to calibrate the accelerometer is quite complex. A calibration method of less complexity is desired to calibrate stand-alone accelerometers that require moderate accuracy. One stand-alone accelerometer, the X16-1D, was used to investigate calibration techniques. Six calibration techniques were investigated to determine an efficient method to calibrate a stand-alone accelerometer. Each method provided a different acceleration component that was modeled by theoretical equations. For all six methods, test variables were established to determine the accelerometers ability to track acceleration. Each test was compared to the theoretical acceleration model to determine the effectiveness of the calibration technique. The overall errors of each method and their significance on the calibration are modeled to determine the characteristic offsets inherent to the accelerometer. The overall consistency in error and accelerometer offset between tests proves that the accelerometer is inherently well calibrated.