STMicroelectronics Launches High-Accuracy Inclinometer with Machine-Learning Core

The IIS2ICLX from STMicroelectronics is a high-accuracy, low-power, 2-axis digital inclinometer for use in applications such as industrial automation and structural-health monitoring. It features a programmable machine-learning core and 16 independent programmable finite state machines that help edge devices save power and reduce data transfers to the cloud.

With its advanced embedded functions, the IIS2ICLX lowers system-level power consumption to extend the operation of battery-powered nodes. The sensor’s inherent characteristics simplify integration into high-performing products, while minimizing the effort and cost of calibration.

Using MEMS accelerometer technology, the IIS2ICLX inclinometer has a selectable full scale of ±0.5/±1/±2/±3g and provides outputs over an I2C or SPI digital interface. Embedded compensation maintains stability over temperature to within 0.075mg/°C, ensuring high accuracy and repeatability even when ambient temperatures undergo extreme fluctuations. Its ultra-low noise density of 15μg/√Hz enables high-resolution tilt sensing as well as sensing of low-level, low-frequency vibration, as required in structural-health monitoring.

The combination of high stability and repeatability, high accuracy, and high resolution make the IIS2ICLX particularly suited to industrial applications such as antenna pointing and monitoring, platform leveling, forklift and construction machines, leveling instruments, equipment installation and monitoring, and installation and sun tracking for solar panels, as well as Industry 4.0 applications such as robots and autonomous guided vehicles (AGVs).

In structural-health monitoring, accurately measuring inclination and vibration with the IIS2ICLX can help assess the integrity of structures such as tall towers and infrastructure like bridges or tunnels. Affordable, battery-powered MEMS tilt sensors containing the IIS2ICLX enable many more structures to be monitored for safety than has been economically viable using earlier, more expensive technologies.

Whereas many high-accuracy inclinometers are single-axis devices, the 2-axis IIS2ICLX accelerometer can sense the tilt with respect to a horizontal plane along two axes (pitch and roll) or, by combining the two axes, can measure the tilt with high and repeatable accuracy and resolution with respect to a single direction of the horizontal plane over a range of ±180°. The digital output simplifies system design and reduces Bill-of-Materials (BOM) cost by saving external digital-to-analog conversion or filtering.

To ease the adoption of the IIS2ICLX and accelerate application development, ST also provides specific software libraries to support sensor calibration and real-time computation of tilt angle. Such software libraries are part of the X-CUBE-MEMS1 expansion software package for STM32Cube

The IIS2ICLX is housed in a high-performance ceramic-cavity LGA package measuring 5mm x 5mm x 1.7mm, with an operating temperature range of -40°C to +105°C. It is available now in sample quantities. The devices are in volume production now, with a web price of $15.00.

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