Performance analysis of commercial accelerometers of different technologies

This paper points out the performance and limits of commercial resistive, piezoresistive, piezoelectric, capacitive, thermal and optical accelerometers and can be used as a reference work. Therefore, datasheets of 118 accelerometers from 27 manufacturers of eight countries have been analyzed. Focus of the analysis were the parameters overload shock limit, measurement range, frequency response, resonance frequency, volume, weight, power consumption and operating temperature of both uniaxial and triaxial accelerometers. Accelerometers with overload shock limits in the range of 50 g to 200 x 103 g and within a measurement range of 2 g to 110 x 103 g have been analyzed. The unit g stands for the gravity acceleration defined as 9.81 meters per square second. A strict overload shock limit of 10 x 103 g for accelerometers with proof mass and a measurement range of less than 2 x 103 g was found. Also, that the performance of uniaxial and triaxial accelerometers differs. Especially uniaxial piezoelectric accelerometers show a better performance with regard to overload shock, measurement range, resonance frequency, frequency response and operating temperature in contrast to triaxial ones. Piezoelectric accelerometers show the highest overload shock limits, measurement range and operating temperature, capacitive accelerometers the lowest power consumption and volume, piezoresistive accelerometers the widest frequency response.