Free-fall Sensor

Free-fall Sensor

An accelerometer is a device that measures proper acceleration. The proper acceleration measured by an accelerometer is not necessarily the coordinate acceleration (rate of change of velocity). Instead, the accelerometer sees the acceleration associated with the phenomenon of weight experienced by any test mass at rest in the frame of reference of the accelerometer device. For example, an accelerometer at rest on the surface of the earth will measure an acceleration g= 9.81 m/s2 straight upwards, due to its weight. By contrast, accelerometers in free fall or at rest in outer space will measure zero. Another term for the type of acceleration that accelerometers can measure is g-force acceleration.

Accelerometers have multiple applications in industry and science. Highly sensitive accelerometers are components of inertial navigation systems for aircraft and missiles. Accelerometers are used to detect and monitor vibration in rotating machinery. Accelerometers are used in tablet computers and digital cameras so that images on screens are always displayed upright.

Single- and multi-axis models of accelerometer are available to detect magnitude and direction of the proper acceleration (or g-force), as a vector quantity, and can be used to sense orientation (because direction of weight changes), coordinate acceleration (so long as it produces g-force or a change in g-force), vibration, shock, and falling in a resistive medium (a case where the proper acceleration changes, since it starts at zero, then increases). Micromachined accelerometers are increasingly present in portable electronic devices and video game controllers, to detect the position of the device or provide for game input.

Pairs of accelerometers extended over a region of space can be used to detect differences (gradients) in the proper accelerations of frames of references associated with those points. These devices are called gravity gradiometers, as they measure gradients in the gravitational field. Such pairs of accelerometers in theory may also be able to detect gravitational waves.