Motion Artifact Sensor Using Strain Gauges

Motion artifacts are a common source of noise in many commercial devices and measurement systems. They tend to adversely affect the information that is present in the signal of interest. These artifacts are often corrected using various postprocessing techniques, predominantly using signal processing means, after the measurement process is complete. However, in many applications, it would be advantageous to have a mechanism to detect these motion artifacts during the process of measurement to improve the raw signal acquisition. To this end, this article presents a motion artifact sensor that is based on strain gauges. A tabletop prototype system has been built and tested to verify its feasibility and functionality. The system has also been tested against a conventional accelerometer and a gyroscope which are generally used as reference motion sensing devices. The results corroborate the fact that the proposed sensor successfully detects motion artifacts that would otherwise not be picked up by the conventional sensors.