A University of Florida engineer is the latest researcher to design a tiny, easy-to-manufacture motion sensor, a development that could help popularize the sensors as standard equipment in personal electronics, medical devices and other applications.
The sensor, which measures about 3 square millimeters or one-tenth of an inch, is not the smallest motion sensor ever invented. But it is extremely sensitive, draws only a tiny amount of electrical power and — most important – is one of a new generation of sensors that can be made using the computer chip manufacturing industry’s standard techniques and equipment.
Motion sensors are hardly new, but they were large, heavy and typically used in airplanes and ships for navigational purposes in recent decades. Miniaturization techniques developed as part of a relatively new field called Micro Electrical Mechanical Systems, or MEMS, have steadily reduced their size and cost.
The chip uses about one-thousandth of a watt of power, meaning it has the potential to operate for as long as a year on a standard watch battery. It is also extremely sensitive, so much so that it can register sound as well as motion.
