We would like to make a simple accelerometer to measure acceleration a of an object. A rather straightforward way to do this is to connect a mass to the tip of a leaf spring, and measure the deflection of the spring due to the inertial forces. Measuring the spring deflection can be done using metal resistive strain gauges or piezo-resistive strain gauges.
The big question is how? So where should we place the strain gauges? Can you estimate the sensor response ΔR / (R⋅a) that we can expect as a function of the mass m and the elastic properties of the leaf spring?
Are you aware of other ways to measure the deflection in a micro-scale accelerometer? To help answer this question it is good to think about the following:
Generally, transducers can be divided in four categories based on two criteria (modulator vs. generator type and energy storing vs. dissipative transduction). Do you know in which category we should place the resistive strain gauge?
