I'm disappointed that Spark Fun employees would waste their time like that. There is no useful information in that tutorial.
really ?!
i found that very useful !
we're talking about hobbyists and beginners and i think SparkFun's tutorial is VERY GOOD in explaining it in simple language.
that's certainly a good reference, thanks for that.
however, even the "fundamentals" are quite "advanced" and getting into Euler equations "and stuff" - obviously those are essential before one gets anything 'useful' out of an accelerometer reading, but to begin "playing with one" and finding out "what the heck is it" SparkFun succeeds - that CHrobotics site assumes some level of comfortability with the engineering world. (even the "introductory page" already jumps into mathematical equations that would scare away some ! - perhaps that's what you'd prefer ?)
the Arduino world is introducing EE & CS to people without those backgrounds - i think that's a good thing, but perhaps you'd disagree - maybe too many "casual engineers" popping up could bring about countless reckless machines running amok...
I suppose that some might find the Sparkfun tutorial useful, especially if one has no idea what is inside one certain type of accelerometer. However, it did not have any information relating to the OPs question, which was how to integrate the accelerometer output to get distance.
Sadly for some, it takes math to answer that question. The real answer to the OPs question is that cheap accelerometers are, in general, too noisy and inaccurate to be useful to measure distance traveled by the double integration technique.
What would "expensive" mean, in this context? Military and aviation grade accelerometers and gyroscopes have been used for accurate dead reckoning, for many decades.
jremington:
I suppose that some might find the Sparkfun tutorial useful, especially if one has no idea what is inside one certain type of accelerometer. However, it did not have any information relating to the OPs question, which was how to integrate the accelerometer output to get distance.
ahh yes, probably a little more than what most beginners using an accelerometer would do.
i guess i should've noticed this ;
master thesis student at University of Ulm in Germany
from the OP.
i just saw the "urgent repost" and thought i'd just help him along with some resources pending someone's more definitive response.
jremington:
Sadly for some, it takes math to answer that question. The real answer to the OPs question is that cheap accelerometers are, in general, too noisy and inaccurate to be useful to measure distance traveled by the double integration technique.
i suppose it's ironic that hobbyists that may want to measure distances that aren't really long (say, within 10-20 meters ?) would need even more sensitive sensors to calculate them accurately.