1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates generally to a method for calibrating and operating an accelerometer device. More particularly, this invention relates to methods of improving the methods of compensating parameters of operating accelerometers for temperature variation.
2. Description of the Prior Art
Conventional techniques for carrying out accelerometer measurements and calibrations caused by temperature variations still have technical difficulties and limitations. The accelerometers generally generate three types of output signals. The first type of output signal is an analog signal such as an output voltage. The second type of output signal is a digital pulse width modulation (PWM) signal. The PWM signal has time duration with a length that represent the duty cycle corresponding to the voltage of the analog signal. The third type of output signal is a sequence of binary digital pulse that represents the voltage of the analog signal. For the purpose of simplifying the explanations, the following discussions of calibration of accelerometers use examples of analog signals while the technical principles and descriptions are applicable to all three types of output signal.
An output voltage Vo is generated from an accelerometer when an acceleration represented by a parameter “a” is detected along the axes of the accelerometer. The acceleration “a” can be calculated from output voltage Vo and the gravity acceleration g as:
Acceleration a=g·{[Vo−Voffset]/Vsensitivity} (1)
There are two important accelerometer parameters, namely Voffset and Vsensitivity employed to compute the acceleration “a” according to Equation (1). The parameter Voffset representing an output voltage when there is no acceleration, i.e., when acceleration “a”=0. The parameter “g” in Equation (1) represents the gravity acceleration and in the following equations, Vg represents the voltage output when the acceleration value of the accelerometer has a value of “g”. As discussed above, the output signal from an accelerometer can also be a duty cycle of a pulse according to a pulse width modulation process for output signal generation or a pulse stream representing the voltage of the analog signal. In the above Equation (1):
V
sensitivity
=V
g
−V
offset (2)
Initially, a manufacturer of the accelerometer provides the values of these two parameters Voffset and Vsensitivity and the user of the accelerometer then applies the values of these two parameters and Equations (1) and (2) to measure and determine the accelerations according to the outputs. However, the values of these two parameters Voffset and Vsensitivity drift gradually and become inaccurate for acceleration computations. Inaccuracies of acceleration measurements are generated due to the value drifts of these two parameters due to variation of temperature changes in the surrounding environment for operating the accelerometer. More particularly, the general practice of the manufacturers now is to measure the values of Voffset and Vsensitivity of the accelerometer based on the output voltages of an accelerometer for a standard temperature of operation. The manufacturer may often provide a table for a user to adjust the values of Voffset and Vsensitivity of the accelerometer based on the temperature variations. However, the values may also drift and become inaccurate with the operation of the accelerometer. A user of the accelerometer is however unable to recalibrate the values of Voffset and Vsensitivity for adjusting the values caused by the changes of temperature. With such limitation, the user of an accelerometer has limited option but to continue to use an accelerometer with the built in values of the Voffset and Vsensitivity and their variations in different temperatures as these values continue to drift with time thus seriously affecting the accuracy and usefulness of the accelerometers.
Therefore, a need still exists in the art of accelerometer measurements, calibrations and operation to provide new and improved methods and processes to compensate for temperature variations in order to overcome the above-discussed difficulties and limitations.
Therefore, one aspect of this invention is to provide new and improved methods and device configurations for measuring and calibrating the values of Voffset and Vsensitivity and the variations of Voffset and Vsensitivity due to temperature changes such that the above-discussed problems and limitation encountered in the conventional accelerometers can be resolved.
Another aspect of this invention is to provide new and improved methods of measurements and calibration to measure and calibrate these operational parameters either with measurement and calibration equipment available in a manufacturer's factory or by using directly measurements of an accelerometer with a temperature sensor without such specific measurement and calibration equipment other than a furnace for controlling the operation temperatures.
In the descriptions of embodiments provided below, the accelerometers are described in applications for level measurements. However, the methods can be applied and suitable for different kind applications as well. The descriptions of the exemplary embodiments assume measurements of acceleration along one axis, but the same principles and methods would also be suitable and applicable for applications of acceleration measurement along axes for two or three dimensional acceleration measurements.
In an exemplary embodiment, this invention discloses a method for calibrating a temperature compensation for an accelerometer with an offset Voffset and sensitivity Vsensitivity implemented in a level gauge having a known value of an offset angle Δ. The method includes a step of placing the level gauge implemented with the accelerometer in a furnace to control a temperature variation and measuring an output voltage of the accelerometer at several tilt angles for calculating different values of Voffset and sensitivity Vsensitivity at different temperatures.
These and other objects and advantages of the present invention will no doubt become obvious to those of ordinary skill in the art after having read the following detailed description of the preferred embodiment, which is illustrated in the various drawing figures.
Referring to
a=g·{[V
o
−V
offset
]/V
sensitivity}
When the axis of the accelerometer 100 is parallel to the bottom surface of the level gauge while the level gauge is tilted along an angle θ relative to the surface of the absolute horizontal level, the accelerometer detects the acceleration “a” as:
a=g·sin θ (3)
Therefore, sin=[Vo−Voffset]/Vsensitivity (4)
Or θ=sin−1 {[Vo−Voffset]/Vsensitivity} (5)
The microprocessor 120 receives the output signal Vo is able to compute the tilt angle θ and display the value of the tilt angle θ on the LCD display 130. In these processes, the measurements are conducted under a temperature of 25° C. and the values of the offset Voffset and sensitivity Vsensitivity are calculated in this standard temperature.
Since the values of the offset Voffset and sensitivity Vsensitivity are changed with variations of temperature, the values of offset the Voffset Vsensitivity and sensitivity Vsensitivity at temperature “t” is represent by Voffset (t) and sensitivity Vsensitivity (t) for representing these values at a temperature of t° C.
To start the calibration process, the PC board supports the accelerometer and the circuit is placed into a furnace with a temperature controlled at t° C. and measuring an output voltage of Vo(θ1, t) where θ1 is the tilt angle of the PC board and θ1 can be calculated as:
θ1=sin−1 {[Vo(θ1, 25)−Voffset(25)]/Vsensitivity(25)} (6)
Keeping the tilt angle of the PC board unchanged while increasing the temperature of the furnace to 50° C., and measuring another output voltage from the accelerometer represented by Vo(θ1, 50).
V
o(θ1, 50)=Vsensitivity(50)·sin θ1+Voffset(50) (7)
Turning down the temperature back to 25° C. then change the tilt angle of the PC board to θ2 and measuring another output voltage from the accelerometer represented by Vo(θ2, 25).
θ2=sin−1 {[Vo(θ2, 25)−Voffset(25)]/Vsensitivity(25)} (8)
Then, turning up the temperature back to 50° C. while keeping the tilt angle of the PC board at θ2 and measuring another output voltage from the accelerometer represented by Vo(θ2, 50).
V
o(θ2, 50)=Vsensitivity(50)·sin θ2+Voffset(50) (9)
The values of Vo(θ1, 50), Vo(θ2, 50) and θ1, θ2 are known, these equations can therefore be solved to calculated the values of Vsensitivity(50) and Voffset(50).
By repeating the above processes for different temperatures, the values of Vsensitivity(t) and Voffset(t) can be obtained for different values of “t”. By repeating this process for 100 temperatures between 0° C. ˜50° C., the values of Vsensitivity(t) and Voffset(t) can be generated for every 0.5° C. The values of Vsensitivity(t) and Voffset(t) can be stored in a microprocessor. The accelerometer may be operable between a temperature in a range of 0° C. ˜50° C., the values of Vsensitivity(t) and Voffset(t) can be conveniently generated by applying the data table generated by the above processes.
The above-described processes required many times of temperature adjustments and measurements and may become very time consuming and not practical. Another method may be implemented by starting the process of placing the PC board supporting the accelerometer into a furnace at a temperature of 0° C. keeping the tilt angle of the PC board to θ1 with an unknown value of θ1. The temperature of the furnace is gradually increased while the microprocessor continuously monitor and receiving digitized signals of voltage and temperature from the accelerometer and the temperature sensor as shown in
In summary, the processes involves the following several key steps:
The range of temperatures and the incremental temperature of measurements can be flexibly selected other than the exemplary temperature range of 0° C. ˜50° C. and the incremental temperature of every 0.5° C. Furthermore, the exemplary application illustrates a single axis accelerometer, while the same temperature calibration process may be applied to accelerometer with two axes or three axes.
According to
Although the present invention has been described in terms of the presently preferred embodiment, it is to be understood that such disclosure is not to be interpreted as limiting. Various alternations and modifications will no doubt become apparent to those skilled in the art after reading the above disclosure. Accordingly, it is intended that the appended claims be interpreted as covering all alternations and modifications as fall within the true spirit and scope of the invention.
This Non-provisional Application claims a Priority Date of Oct. 5, 2007 benefited from a Provisional Patent Applications 60/997,975 filed by an Applicant as one of the Inventors of this Application. The disclosures made in Patent Application 60/997,975 are hereby incorporated by reference in this Application.
Number | Date | Country | |
---|---|---|---|
60997975 | Oct 2007 | US |