Allan variance analysis on MEMS tilt sensors with different principles of operation

Abstract

Tilt sensing is an important part in absolute position and orientation measurement, e.g. inertial navigation units and tilt detectors. In this paper, the direct comparison of three MEMS tilt sensors with different principle of operation has been carried out and evaluated using Allan variance (AV) method. Selected samples represent major principles used in MEMS accelerometers on the market -capacitive Analog Devices ADXL203, thermal MEMSIC MXA6500M and piezoresistive Panasonic AGS61231. All devices have similar measurement range and acceleration sensitivity. The results of AV analysis show similar behavior and curve shape in capacitive principle, with the lowest acceleration random walk observed, and in thermal principle, with six times higher bias instability in compare with capacitive principle. The piezoresistive principle has lower velocity random walk, but it is very sensitive to temperature variations, seen in long cluster times.

Application of Improved Fast Dynamic Allan Variance for the Characterization of MEMS Gyroscope on UAV

“…Allan variance method is a time analysis technique developed by Dr. David Allan to study the characteristic of random noise terms and stability in precision oscillators used in clock application [13]. Allan variance method can be used to determine the characteristics of the underlying random processes which lead to data noises [14,15], and it is also generally used to identify the errors of inertial sensors (i.e., gyroscopes and accelerometers) [16][17][18][19]. The dynamical Allan variance (DAVAR) is a sliding version of Allan variance, which could represent the nonstationary behavior of the signal [20,21].…”