Accelerometer for mobile robot positioning

An evaluation of a low-cost, small sized solid state accelerometer is described in this paper. The sensor is intended for positioning of a mobile robot or platform. The acceleration signal outputted by the sensor is doubly integrated with time which yields the traveled distance. Bias offset drift exhibits in the acceleration signal is accumulative and the accuracy of the distance measurement deteriorates with time due to the integration. A Kalman filter is used to reduce errors caused by random noises. The random bias drift of the accelerometer was found by experiment to be 2.5 mg. The accelerometer was moved back and forth three times for a distance of 40 cm with an acceleration of 8 m/s/sup 2/. The final distance error accumulated was -1.08 cm. The bias drift rate due to temperature was 0.108 /spl mu/g/s when the accelerometer was placed at room temperature. The results show that the accelerometer could be a viable solution as a short duration distance-measuring device for a mobile robot or platform.

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