Computational Study of a Motion Sensor to Simultaneously Measure Two Physical Quantities in All Three Directions for a UAV.

Cross-axis sensitivity is generally undesirable, and lower values are required for the accurate performance of a thermal accelerometer. In this study, errors in devices are utilized to simultaneously measure two physical quantities of an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) in the X-, Y-, and Z-directions, i.e., where three accelerations and three rotations can also be simultaneously measured using a single motion sensor. The 3D structures of thermal accelerometers were designed and simulated in a FEM simulator using commercially available FLUENT 18.2 software Obtained temperature responses were correlated with input physical quantities, and a graphical relationship was created between peak temperature values and input accelerations and rotations. Using this graphical representation, any values of acceleration from 1g to 4g and rotational speed from 200 to 1000°/s can be simultaneously measured in all three directions.

Computational Study on Thermal Motion Sensors That Can Measure Acceleration and Rotation Simultaneously.

In this study, a new technique has been proposed by numerical simulations by which multiple physical quantities can be simultaneously measured. The sensor is a modification of existing physical sensors such as a thermal motion sensor. Simultaneous measurement of acceleration and rotation is presented herein. Cross-axis sensitivity is employed such that output sensitivities observed at two perpendicular axes, X and Y sensor data, are related to the input physical quantities. The physics involved in measurement is similar to that of a conventional thermal accelerometer, hence the governing equations predicting the sensor response are based on the conservation of mass, momentum, and energy, and are discretized by using a commercially available software FLUENT. A series of computational studies are conducted and using these studies a novel idea is proposed in which the maximum temperature values are obtained at various positions around a heating source and are correlated with the applied acceleration and rotational speed. A parametric study is also presented to find the optimum distance between the heater and sensors. The influence of changing gas medium on the temperature curves has also been examined and it has been concluded that CO2 generates the maximum performance due to its higher density and lower viscosity.

Computational Experiments on the Step and Frequency Responses of a Three-Axis Thermal Accelerometer.

The sensor response has been reported to become highly nonlinear when the acceleration added to a thermal accelerator is very large, so the same response can be observed for two accelerations with different magnitudes and opposite signs. Some papers have reported the frequency response for the horizontal acceleration to be a first-order system, while others have reported it to be a second-order system. The response for the vertical acceleration has not been studied. In this study, computational experiments were performed to examine the step and frequency responses of a three-axis thermal accelerometer. The results showed that monitoring the temperatures at two positions and making use of cross-axis sensitivity allow a unique acceleration to be determined even when the range of the vertical acceleration is very large (e.g., -10,000-10,000 g). The frequency response was proven to be a second-order system for horizontal acceleration and a third-order system for vertical acceleration.