Primary calibration of mechanical sensors with digital output for dynamic applications

Abstract

This article tackles the challenge of the dynamic calibration of modern sensors with integrated data sampling and purely digital output for the measurement of mechanical quantities like acceleration, angular velocity, force, pressure, or torque. Based on the established calibration methods using sine excitation, it describes an extension of the established methods and devices that yields primary calibration results for the magnitude and phase of the complex transfer function. The system is demonstrated with a focus on primary accelerometer calibrations but can easily be transferred to the other mechanical quantities. Furthermore, it is shown that the method can be used to investigate the quality and characteristics of the timing for the internal sampling of such digital output sensors. Thus, it is able to gain crucial information for any subsequent phase-related measurements with such sensors.