Motion sensing and MEMS: Powerful technologies to transform applications While Micro-electro-mechanical systems (MEMS) technology has been

in existence for more than a decade or two in atmospheric pressure sensors and airbag deployment, the use of inertial sensor is always been there with having the extraordinary feature of motion sensing so that the awareness about the broad use of inertial sensing. The idea behind using the inertial sensor has been emerged with an objective to sense acceleration and deceleration, to a great extent as an end-product. Today, the use of MEMS has been emerged with gyroscopes and accelerometers in various areas like industries, medical science, electrical appliances and automobiles. Modes of motion sensing The modern and high-volume MEMS technology is mostly based on the five modes of motion sensing acceleration (with the movement of translation like orientation and positioning), vibration, shock, tilt and rotation. 1. Acceleration: as we all know acceleration is commonly and vastly made for the purpose of positioning and movement. This plays a great role in power management and its utility. This is helpful in power management in the sense, it detects the on and off of powering when the user pick up a device and put it down. This is human-oriented as it generally avoids the repetitive tasks of the user. Above all, this makes the device last-longing amongst the process of recharging and replacement of the battery. This enables the usage of automatic and intelligent remote control along with LCD backlit. Another great way of the utilization of accelerometer is of sensing the movement for the public safety and military personnel. Even at the time we have to stop radio, this may demands for re-authentication for keeping the communication secure. This has portable and compact design so that it can be used anywhere because this uses little amount of energy. The automated external defibrillators are another great motion sensing application in medical science. Basically, this is designed in the medical field to provide CPR to the medical patient so that his or her heart can pump again. In the case of failure of this technology, manual CPR technique is used. In these AEDs, the accelerometers are embedded in order to show the results after each compression by calculating the moving distance between pad and the chest.

2. Vibration: This serves as a main indicator with slight changes in the bearings, misaligned components, and other types of machines along with industrial machineries. For this technique, the fine accelerometers of MEMS are perfect to detect the vibrating fans, motors, and compressors with very large bandwidth. The best part is that it avoids potential damages because this is capable to perform predictive maintenance. This is especially beneficial for manufacturing companies because they can be able to avoid any breakdowns in expensive equipments that can increase the production costs. 3. Shock: Gesture recognition is the feature which is available in many notebook computers with having the disk drive protection. This detects the minor g-forces with the help of accelerometer which shows the drive is dropping or falling. With this technology, the system instructs the hard drive to park itself with the disk platter. This prevents damage to the drive along with detecting potential errors. In inertial sensing technology, gesture sensing is the latest advancement which defines gestures like shakes, taps or double-taps. All in all, this lets the endusers to activate various features with an aim of adjustment of physical buttons and operation modes. This makes the equipments more capable to switch when the manipulation is difficult. This reduces the overall cost of system with its button-less designs with increasing the efficiency and durability of end-products like cameras that can be used underground and underwater. Electronic appliances are other products in which gesture recognition works with the MEMS accelerometers that are compact and low-powered. 4. Tilt sensing: Tilt also plays a great role in gesture recognition and precision operation as well. For instance, construction and industrial equipments of inspection can easily use the equipments with one-handed operation. When the operator stands up, the device stays free of any control in the platform without operating the device. Since tile is working in that case, it makes the use of 3axis accelerometer that can sense the rotation. This detects the change in the vector of gravity, whether or not the rotation is counterclockwise or clockwise. This can be sensed by tap in order to allow the user to control singlehandedly the device. In this case when measurement of tilt is very useful, compensating of the device position is very helpful. When it comes to use GPS (Global Positioning

System) on a smart phone, heading error is a well-known error in which the compass is exactly not parallel positioned according to the earth surface. 5. Rotation: Once the rotation is added to the motion sensing, the MEMS technology really provides great benefits with gyroscopes and other real-world applications. This calls for the practice of accelerometers and IMUs. The introduction of Inertial Measurement Units has been come into existence when multi-axis gyroscopes and accelerometers have been introduced. This is improved with an aim to bring accurate heading with multi-axis magnetometer. Furthermore, the Inertial Measurement Units offers fully-oriented 6 Degrees of Freedom (6DoF). All in all, this helps us to bring very fine resolution in various multi-tasking applications like advanced prosthetics, surgical instruments and various industrial vehicles. Another great benefit to pick Inertial Measurement Units is their various functions that are properly and already calibrated and tested by the maker of sensors. This can be explained more clearly with an example of golf course which keeps track on records of each and every movement of ball swing so that the tricks of a golfer can be advanced. In the golf club, accelerometers properly determine the swing and acceleration when the gyroscopes check pro-nation and they also measure the move of hands of golfer when the ball swings. In Conclusion When the need comes of user-oriented devices of low power consumption features, avoiding the use of more buttons and controls, making compensation of positioning and gravity and providing operation more intelligently, the use of MEMS inertial sensing is always there with a large amount of features.