IDEAS FOR DESIGN

Use Accelerometers For Vibration

Measurement And Control
Abdul R.S. Bukhari
CIRCLE 521
Alaska Clinical Engineering Services, 225 Eagle St., Anchorage, AK 99501; fax (907) 272-3471;
e-mail: bukhariabdul@hotmail.com

ecent advances in microelectron- ation measurements require that the slower variations due to tilt or any

R ic mechanical systems (MEMS)

have made high-performance,
high-accuracy, low-cost accelerometers
available on a single monolithic IC.
Accelerometers are used for accelera-
tion and tilt measurements, vibration
control, and cutoff switches for specif-
ic vibration conditions.
An accelerometer output always has
two components: an output signal pro-
portional to the tilt and another output
signal proportional to the acceleration
or vibration. Depending on the appli-
cation, a signal-conditioning circuit
may be required. Applications that are
based purely upon vibration or acceler-
tilt signal be filtered out.
In our particular application, the
design goal was the activation of an
alarm circuit when an object was sub-
jected to a jerk of higher intensity than
a reference value. The frequency of the
applied jerk was expected to be in the
range of 1 to 5 Hz.
Shown is the implementation of the
alarm circuit using an ADXL105
(Analog Devices Inc.) accelerometer
(see the figure). The ADXL105 is a sin-
gle-axis accelerometer with an uncom-
mitted on-board amplifier.
The accelerometer output is ac-cou-
pled to the on-board amplifier so that
other signal of constant magnitude are
rejected. To obtain the desired output,
this on-board amplifier is used as a
bandpass filter, as shown in the
schematic. Then the signal is rectified
and fed to a comparator, IC2. The out-
put from the comparator generates a
square pulse each time the magnitude
of the jerk is more than a preset value.
The comparator’s output is used to
trigger a one-shot, implemented using
a 555 timer. The timer output, in turn,
drives the alarm circuitry.
This circuit can also be used as a
vibration cutoff switch, with little
modification, by using the output

V+
CB RB
0.22 mF 50

14 13
VDO
ADXL105
1 TOUT Temp sensor Uncommitted amplifier V+
+ R6
2 ST
– 3M
X sensor AOUT VNIO
COM COM VIN VIN UC
4 8
7 4 8 9 10 11 R2 330k 12 3
7

– 2
555 Alarm
R1 V+ C2 V+
C1
R5 0.047 mF +
0.33 mF 100k 6
820k 5
R3 R4
20k 20k C3 1 C4
0.01 mF 0.82 mF

MEMS technology incorporated in the ADXL105 accelerometer from Analog Devices Inc. allows the miniaturization of this vibration alarm.
132 ELECTRONIC DESIGN • January 10, 2000
 IDEAS FOR DESIGN
from a 555 timer to operate the switch.
In some applications, it’s required to
record the history of vibrations an
object endured during transportation
from one place to another. A similar
circuit, in which the output of the
timer is stored in a memory to be read
later, can be used. An event recorder is
another alternative.
134 ELECTRONIC DESIGN • January 10, 2000
In applications that might require
dual-axis vibration or tilt measure-
ments, the ADXL202 dual-axis ac-
celerometer is a viable option. An exter-
nal amplifier needs to be employed for
signal conditioning, because the
ADXL202 doesn’t have its own on-
board amplifier.
The ADXL202 offers two sets of out-
puts. It has a set of analog outputs and
a set of pulse-width-modulated out-
puts corresponding to the vibration or
tilt along the two axes. Any of these
output sets can be employed, depend-
ing upon the application.
The work described in this Idea was
performed at the Texas Children’s
Hospital in Houston.