A Novel Wireless Thermal Convection Type Inclinometer by Using Non-Floating Structure

Abstract

This research proposes a novel wireless RFID-based thermal convection type inclinometer by using non-floating structure without a cavity in the substrate. Four new ideas are presented. The first one is to make the device on a flexible substrate, thus it can save more energy than the traditional silicon. The second one is to integrate both an inclinometer and a wireless RFID antenna on the same substrate, such that it is a wireless device and very convenient for usage. The third idea is to fill xenon gas in the chamber with hemi-spherical or hemi-cylindrical shape instead of the previous one with carbon dioxide and rectangular shape. Because the xenon gas would not produce oxidization effect to the heater, so it would be more reliable. The fourth idea is to use non-floating structure instead of the floating one. The results by using floating structure with xenon and CO2 gases are studied the first; but the sensitivity performances are not good. Note that the sensitivities for the proposed non-floating structure by using hemi-spherical chamber filled with xenon and CO2 gases are better, and the one of the former is better than the latter by 70%. On the other hand, the response speed (step-input of tilted angle) by using hemi-cylindrical chamber with xenon gas is the quickest, the average response time is 545μs, while the hemi-spherical chamber filled with CO2 is the slowest, and the average response time is 748μs.