Intrinsic properties—the secret lives of accelerometers

When different laboratories test the same accelerometer, such as the one in your smartphone, they often come up with very different values. There are several possible reasons: Perhaps the axes of the gimbal system used in testing are not perfectly aligned, or the internal axes of the device under test (DUT) itself are misligned, or maybe the DUT is mounted on the test table incorrectly. To remove these problems, NIST scientists are taking measurements to determine the DUT’s ‘intrinsic’ properties—those that are unique to the device itself. This video demonstration includes footage of the high-precision gimbal table used to rotate the DUT (in this case, a smartphone) on all three axes simultaneously.