Comparative Study of Piezoelectric and MEMS Accelerometers for Vibrational Measurements

An Accelerometer is a device used to measure the shock and vibration of mechanical structures; the recent miniaturization trends for electronics has increased the application of such devices to portable and IoT products. Conventionally, piezoelectric accelerometers have been used for vibration measurement and recently a variety of MEMS based accelerometers are commercially available. With this development of MEMS technology, there is a need to compare the configurations, signal conditioning and performance of devices according to the accelerometer type used. In this study, analog signal conditioning circuits including an amplifier circuit and a band-pass filter, are constructed for a piezoelectric and MEMS accelerometers, and vibration signals were measured with the two accelerometers using the constructed circuits. The measurement system characteristics of the piezoelectric and MEMS accelerometers are compared by evaluating the configuration of the accelerometers signal control circuits and the measured vibration signals.