Overview
RMS G-meter measures the acceleration up to five times that of Earth's gravity (G). This G-meter can be put inside or on the object that the user wants to measure. It has many applications in shipping and manufacturing. Many customers desire feedback from packages that are shipped in order to verify that packages traveled with as little damage as possible. In the manufacturing industry vibration sensing can be critical. In particular for the paper industry if a machine is vibrating beyond its specifications it can cause poor quality paper and cost the factory a lot of money.
The RMS G-meter is a microprocessor-based device that displays and updates in real time the root-mean-square (RMS) values of the acceleration it is exposed to in a single-axial direction. This device consists of an accelerometer, low pass filter, A/D converter, micro-controller, LCD display, and a battery power supply. Once turned on, the user can rotate through multiple modes: Peak, Average, and Integrated RMS in addition to displaying instantaneous Gs. In Peak Mode, the device updates the highest RMS value it has measured since it was activated. In Average mode, the device displays the averaged RMS value of the signal over the entire time it has been active. In Integrated RMS mode it reports the sum of all RMS samples computed since activation (total integrated RMS). The instantaneous mode will display the raw Gs measured by the accelerometer. This is useful for live measurements and increases functionality with no cost.
Our final result has an easy to read screen with a simple button interface. The G-meter is very user friendly so that anyone will be able to easily comprehend the values displayed by the G-Meter. All of the specifications given by Instrumented Sensor Technology (IST) have been met or exceeded. As a result of the additional work done the user can now access simultaneous calculations for all modes instead of just one at a time. In addition, the code and design have been made so that any analog accelerometer can be used with almost any PIC micro-controller. This makes it possible for multiple models to be made for different needs with a minimal amount of overhead involved.
Calculating RMS:
To calculate the RMS you follow the following steps (corresponding images to the right):
1) Pick a function
2) Square the function
3) Take the mean value of the function
4) Take the square root of the function
