A new PCB-based low-cost accelerometer for human motion sensing

This article presents a new low-cost PCB-based accelerometer. A metal film is adhered to PCB board, which forms the two electrodes of the sensing capacitor of the accelerometer. The sensor signal is proportional to the change of capacitance, and it is obtained by a read-out circuit. This signal is compared with the output signal of a commercially available accelerometer, ADXL330, by Analog Devices. The result shows that the new low-cost accelerometer can fulfill the requirement of human motion sensing.