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Unread 07-01-2010, 15:46
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Chris Hibner Chris Hibner is offline
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Re: Accelerometers & Gyros for N00bs

Quote:
Originally Posted by Trevor_Decker View Post
is 100 g better then 1 g or is it the other way around?

It depends on the application (i.e. what are you using it for?).

If you're using the accelerometer for an anti-lock brake system, you would want to use a low-g range, like a 1.5g accelerometer, since the largest acceleration you should see under braking is about 1g, (the extra 0.5g is because you'll want a little room for vibrations and noise so you don't get distortion in your filters, but that's a more advanced topic).

If you're using the accelerometer for a side-impact airbag crash sensor, you'll want to use an accelerometer in the 250g range since you mount it right next to the impact and you can see accelerations well above 100 g's.

The idea is that you pick your sensor by determining (from physics or tests) what is the largest acceleration you will see. You should then select a sensor that can measure with just a little more range than this maximum.
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