ST unveils inclinometer with machine-learning core
25 August 2020
STMicroelectronics has unveiled the IIS2ICLX, a high-accuracy, low-power, 2-axis digital inclinometer for use in applications such as industrial automation and structural-health monitoring.
The device features a programmable machine-learning core and 16 independent programmable finite state machines that help edge devices to save both power and reduce data transfers to the cloud.
With advanced embedded functions, the IIS2ICLX is able to lower system-level power consumption to extend the operation of battery-powered nodes. The sensor’s inherent characteristics simplify integration into high-performing products, while minimizing the effort and cost of calibration.
Using MEMS accelerometer technology, the IIS2ICLX has a selectable full scale of ±0.5/±1/±2/±3g and provides outputs over an I2C or SPI digital interface. Embedded compensation maintains stability over temperature to within 0.075mg/°C, ensuring higher accuracy and repeatability even when ambient temperatures undergo extreme fluctuations. Its ultra-low noise density of 15μg/？Hz enables high-resolution tilt sensing as well as sensing of low-level, low-frequency vibration, as required in structural-health monitoring.
This combination of high stability and repeatability, with high accuracy and high resolution make the IIS2ICLX suited for industrial applications such as antenna pointing and monitoring, platform levelling, forklift and construction machines, levelling instruments, equipment installation and monitoring, and installation and sun tracking for solar panels, as well as Industry 4.0 applications such as robots and autonomous guided vehicles (AGVs).
In structural-health monitoring, accurately measuring inclination and vibration with the IIS2ICLX can help assess the integrity of structures such as tall towers and infrastructure like bridges or tunnels. Affordable, battery-powered MEMS tilt sensors containing the IIS2ICLX enable many more structures to be monitored for safety than has been economically viable using earlier, more expensive technologies.
Whereas many high-accuracy inclinometers are single-axis devices, the 2-axis IIS2ICLX accelerometer can sense the tilt with respect to a horizontal plane along two axes (pitch and roll) or, by combining the two axes, can measure the tilt with high and repeatable accuracy and resolution with respect to a single direction of the horizontal plane over a range of ±180°. The digital output simplifies system design and reduces Bill-of-Materials (BOM) cost by saving external digital-to-analogue conversion or filtering.
To ease adoption and speed up application development, ST is also providing specific software libraries to support sensor calibration and real-time computation of tilt angle. Such software libraries are part of the X-CUBE-MEMS1 expansion software package for STM32Cube.
The IIS2ICLX is housed in a high-performance ceramic-cavity LGA package measuring 5mm x 5mm x 1.7mm, with an operating temperature range of -40°C to +105°C.
Author
Neil Tyler
