A New Technique on Vibration Optimization of Industrial Inclinometer for MEMS Accelerometer without Sensor Fusion

Accelerometer of the Microelectromechanical systems (MEMS) based inertial measurement units (IMUs) is key to inclination measurement in the industry 4.0. However, external vibration negatively impacts the precision of orientation angles during operation. Many inclinometer companies have demanded to develop a solution for vibration impact on accelerometer without other sensors’ support because of economic problems. This article presents a new algorithm Orientation Axes Crossover Processing (OACP) on vibration optimization for MEMS accelerometer without sensor fusion. The proposed filter works on a principle based on the characteristics of vibration impact on whether the X-axis or Y-axis to optimally minimize the noise. A high accurate setup is built-up based on the Pan-Tilt Unit and a TUMAC vibrator for the verification of new filters, implemented into LSM9DS1 (3D accelerometer, 3D gyroscope). The new filter is able to work independently, and also fuse with the Low-pass filter or Kalman filter to enhance the dynamic response, only 0.163 seconds as maximum delay during vibration. The experimental results show that the proposed algorithm always accomplishes smaller variations than Low-pass filter, about 0.2 degrees in standard deviation. The compromise between vibration immunity and dynamic response is analyzed in detail to demonstrate the optimal performances of the concerned filters. The project was carried out at the ‘Sensor System’ in Italy which is an industrial company in the inclinometer field.