2011 Third International Conference on Measuring Technology and Mechatronics Automation

Design of Dual-axis Inclinometer Based On MEMS Accelerometer

LIN Da-wei

GUO Tao

National Key Laboratory for Electronic Measurement

National Key Laboratory for Electronic Measurement

Technology

Technology

North University of China

North University of China

Taiyuan,China

Taiyuan,China

lindawei-110@163.com

Abstract--This

paper

guotao6@nuc.edu.cn

designed

accelerometer has the advantages of small, light

weight, low power consumption, fast response,
low cost, high reliability, easy-to-digital and
intelligent. With MEMS technology continues to
mature, MEMS sensors are increasingly widely
used. This paper presents a design of dual-axis
inclinometer based on MEMS accelerometer.

digital

Inclinometer that was composed of a MEMS

accelerometer ADXL202 and a microcontroller
C8051F206. The ADXL202s output signal is
processed, then is acquired and is turned to angle
value by microcontroller, finally the angle is

II.

displayed by a LCD. The inclinometer is compact,

The block diagram of inclinometer is shown

in Figure1.The inclinometer is composed of
MEMS accelerometer ADXL202, signal
conditioning
circuitry,
microcontroller
C8051F206
and
LCD
modules.
The
accelerometer signal of ADXL202 is conditioned
by amplification and filter circuit, then inputs to
the microcontroller C8051F206, which contains
12-bit A/D converter. The ADC results is
calculated by microcontroller and turn to be
angle values, and displayed on a LCD monitor
LCD1602.

light weight, low power consumption and easy

useful. It can be widely used in mechanism,
architecture, military and other fields.
Keywords:

MEMS

sensor;

microcontroller;

Inclinometer

I.

HARDWARE DESIGN

INTRODUCTION

Micro-electromechanical system (MEMS) is

a
micro-system
that
integrates
micro-sensor/actuators,
signal
processing,
control circuit etc, and is produced by
micro-machining
techniques.
MEMS
MEMS accelerometer

Signal conditioning

Microcontroller

LCD module

ADXL202

circuit

C8051F206

LCD1602

Figure1. Block diagram of inclinometer system

A. MEMS accelerometer ADXL202

ADXL202 is production of ADI. It is low
cost,
low
power,
complete
dual-axis
accelerometer with a measurement range of 2g.
Function block diagram shown in Figure2. The
ADXL202
integrates
micro-mechanical
sensitivity unit and the corresponding signal
processing circuit, and has both analog and
digital output. Digital output (duty cycle) is easy
to use, however it is poor frequency response
characteristics. In this paper, the analog signal is
used because its better frequency response via
an external signal conditioning circuit.
978-0-7695-4296-6/11 $26.00 2011 IEEE
DOI 10.1109/ICMTMA.2011.240

Figure2. ADXL202 Functional Block Diagram

The basic principle of angle measurement

using accelerometer is: acceleration of gravity in
959

the accelerometer sensitive axis component

exists, when the accelerometer sensitive axis
angle relative level changes, the acceleration of
gravity in the accelerometer sensitive axis of the
component size will change too. The
accelerometer output with gravity is the sine
function. Anyway, we can use arcsine function to
calculate the angle value. By the sine function
curve shows when the angle is 0(accelerometer
sensitive axis perpendicular to gravity),the
maximum sensitivity angle sensor, the sensor
sensitive changes in shaft angle 1,change in
output acceleration value of about 17.4 mg. With
the sensor sensitive axis angle become larger, the
sensitivity of the sensor angle getting smaller
and smaller. To ensure accuracy, the system
range is 30.

f OSC ( kHz ) =

Figure4. MAX291 low-pass filter circuit

The systems signal conditioning circuit

divides into two parts: the signal amplifier and
filter circuit.
Signal amplification circuit shown in Figure3.
The circuit is actually a subtraction circuit, the
circuit input-output relationship as shown in1:
R29
)(Uin U1 )
R28

2.

In (2), fOSC is the MAX291s system clock,

capacitor COSC generate the internal clock.. The
ratio between MAX291 internal clock and 3dB
cutoff frequency is 100:1. Therefore, we can use
33nF to generate cutoff frequency 10Hz.

B. Signal conditioning circuit

Uo = (1 +

10 5
3C OSC ( pF )

C. Microcontroller C8051F206
Microcontroller C8051F206 is a fully
integrated
mixed-signal
SOC
with
8051-compatibal microcontroller core and
8Kbytes of FLASH memory chip, also integrates
more than 12 channels ADC, the analog voltage
comparator peripherals, supports for JTAG
online programming. The microcontroller is the
system control center. It completes the function
of the input signal acquisition, AD conversion,
angle calculation, LCD display control etc.

Through the circuit, the zero-g output voltage

of ADXL202 can be adjusted, and output signal
can be amplified, to full scale output voltage
range of 03V.

D. LCD module
The LCD module we chose the LCD1602. The
LCD1602 needs +5V supply. And it has the
advantage of low cost, long life, high reliability,
and can display 2*16 letters, simple, easy
development.
III. SOFTWARE DESIGN
System software flow is shown in Figure5.
The system begins to initialization after powered,
then the microcontroller collects acceleration
signal, and processes it to be the corresponding
angle value. Finally the angle value will output
to the LCD to display.

Figure3. Signal amplification circuit

The filter chip we chose MAX291. MAX291 is

easy-to-use,
eighth-order,
low
pass,
switch-capacitor filter. The MAX291 filter
provides maximally flat pass band response, it
can be used as an ordinary filter. The MAX291
can operate with a single +5V supply or dual
5V supplies. This system uses a signal +5V
supply. An external capacitor is used to generate
MAX291s clock using the internal oscillator, or
an external clock signal can be used. In internal
clock mode the circuit is simple, just need a
capacitor. The circuit shows in Figure4. The
system uses the internal clock mode, the external
capacitor is determined by the (2)
960

 = arcsin(A / g)

(3)

In (3),  is the angle value of demand, A is

the acceleration , g is the gravity.
IV.

TEST RESULT

Through the measurement in the corner test

platform, the inclinometers measure error is
shown in Figure6. The measurement error is less
than 0.1. It shows that the inclinometer has
Figure5.

System software flow chart

good precision, and achieves the 30angle of

To reduce the measurement error, the

inclinometer samples the acceleration 10 times,
and calculates the average acceleration. The
angle is determined by the (3)

measurement.

Y-axis mearsure error

0.15

0.1

0.1

mearsure error

mearsure error

X-axis mearsure error

0.15

0.05
0
-0.05

0.05
0
-0.05

-0.1
-30

-0.1

-20

-10

10

20

30

-30

-20

-10

X-axis angle

10

20

30

Y-axis angle

Figure6. The inclinometer measurement error

Experiment Science & Technology.

2006(12):112-114.

V. CONCLUSION
The dual-axis inclinometer designed with
MEMS accelerometer is compact, light weight,
low power, fast response and easy use etc.
Through the calibration and corresponding error
compensation, it can achieve higher accuracy. In
construction, machinery, military and other
fields it has broad application prospects.
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[1]

Tai-Ran Hsu. MEMS & Microsystems: Design

and Manufacture. Beijing: China Machine Press,
2005:1-7.

[2]

SU Jun, WANG Zhan-ping. Design Method of

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[3]

DUAN Xiao-min, LI Jie, LIU Wen-yi etc.

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[4]

LIN Xiao-bo, CUI Yong-jun, ZHEN Guo-yong,

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