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Simplification of calibration of low-cost MEMS accelerometer and its

temperature compensation without accurate laboratory equipment
To cite this article: Saeed Khankalantary et al 2021 Meas. Sci. Technol. 32 045102

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 Measurement Science and Technology

Meas. Sci. Technol. 32 (2021) 045102 (9pp) https://doi.org/10.1088/1361-6501/abd0bf

Simplification of calibration of
low-cost MEMS accelerometer and its
temperature compensation without
accurate laboratory equipment
Saeed Khankalantary1, Saeed Ranjbaran2 and Saeed Ebadollahi2
1
Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Isfahan University of Technology, Isfahan, Iran
2
Department of Electrical Engineering, Iran University of Science and Technology, Tehran, Iran

E-mail: s_ranjbaran@alumni.iust.ac.ir

Received 28 June 2020, revised 22 October 2020

Accepted for publication 4 December 2020
Published 10 February 2021

Abstract
A nonlinear cost function is defined for field calibration of the accelerometer, using the
rule that the norm of the measured vector in a static state is equal to the magnitude of the
gravity vector. To solve this cost function, various optimization methods like Newton and
Levenberg–Marquardt have been presented in different references. However, these methods are
complicated, time-consuming, and require an initial value. This study presents a method that
simplifies the cost function and obtains the error coefficients, including bias, scale factor, and
non-orthogonality using the linear least-squares method which is simpler and faster than other
optimization methods and does not need initial values. Also, the output of the low-cost MEMS
accelerometer depends on temperature due to its silicon property. Thus, by finding the
dependency of the error coefficients on temperature, they can be compensated. This paper
models dependency of error coefficients on temperature using cubic spline interpolation and
minimizes the temperature effect. Simulation results of MATLAB and the proposed field
calibration method and temperature compensation on the low-cost MPU6050 sensor show its
good performance.
Keywords: field calibration, temperature, bias, scale factor, non-orthogonality

(Some figures may appear in colour only in the online journal)

1. Introduction
Today, MEMS accelerometers have found wide applications
in a variety of industries and devices like robotics, physical
therapy and home-based rehabilitation, aeronautics, medicine,
mobile, tablet, etc, due to their low cost, small size, and low
power consumption [1–3]. The accelerometer is used in iner-
tial navigation systems to estimate the position and velocity
of the device when GPS signals are not available. Besides,
the calibrated accelerometer is used to calibrate gyroscopes
[4, 5]. But, MEMS accelerometers are not accurate due to con-
struction faults, installation faults, and external disturbances
[6]. These errors can be divided into two systematic and ran-
dom groups. Systematic errors like bias, scale factor, and non-
orthogonality can be compensated through a proper calibration
method but random errors cannot be compensated easily due to
their random nature [7, 8]. Conventional calibration methods
employ laboratory equipment like a centrifuge, a rate table,
and a temperature chamber to estimate error coefficients of
the accelerometer is called laboratory calibration. Six-position
calibration method can be mentioned as the most common and
oldest laboratory calibration method in which accelerometer
is installed on the table and it can be placed in six differ-
ent static positions; bias coefficient and scale factor are also

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Meas. Sci. Technol. 32 (2021) 045102
obtained where comparison reference of this method for the
sensor is gravity vector [9]. Furthermore, the accuracy of this
method depends on the alignment of the sensor’s body and
table [10]. This method cannot estimate non-orthogonality and
a method is proposed in [11] introduces enhanced six-position
method through which all three coefficients can be obtained. In
2002, Shin and El-Sheimy proposed a general multi-position
in which sensors are placed in more than six positions, hence
calibration accuracy was increased [12].
In order to increase accuracy and obtaining more error
coefficients like nonlinear scale factor, other equipment like
a centrifuge and mechanical arm have been used [13–15].
Along with these equipment, other methods like Kalman Fil-
ter, nonlinear least squares and other optimization methods are
used to increase the accuracy of obtaining error coefficients
[16–19].
But laboratory calibration methods are very time consum-
ing and costly, therefore such methods are not cost-efficient
for MEMS sensors and sometimes calibration cost would
be higher than the sensor’s price. Moreover, these methods
require accurate equipment where the error of these equipment
also affects the calibration procedure significantly [20, 21].
Furthermore, after calibrating sensors and installing them on
the device, they should be calibrated again after a short while
due to installation errors and environmental conditions. There-
fore, fast and cheap methods that do not require accurate labor-
atory equipment are required for calibrating MEMS sensors;
such methods are called field calibration methods. In these
methods, natural rules like gravity vector are used instead of
accurate equipment [22].
Field calibration methods are around since 1995 when Fer-
raris introduced field calibration method in [23]. In this ref-
erence, accelerometer and gyroscope are calibrated without
accurate laboratory equipment and their bias and scale factors
are obtained. In 1998, Lötters et al calibrated accelerometer
using a static edge detector without equipment [24]. But in
both methods, the non-orthogonality coefficient is neglected
and El-Sheimy and Shin have improved this and obtained the
non-orthogonality factor [12]. In this reference, authors have
employed the rule that the norm of the vector measured by the
accelerometer in static conditions is equal to the input vector
(gravity vector).
Using the above rule, a nonlinear cost function is defined
for calibration of the accelerometer and gyroscope which
different studies try to solve it using different optimization
methods like Newton, quasi-Newton, Powel, AFSA and other
algorithms and have obtained calibration coefficients of the
sensor [1, 25–30]. Auxiliary sensors like magnetometer, GPS,
camera, and accurate IMU sensors can be used to calibrate
inertial sensors, but these methods like laboratory methods
are costly and depend on the calibrated and accurate auxili-
ary sensors [31–33]. In this paper, to obtain the error coeffi-
cients of the accelerometer include bias, scale factor, and non-
orthogonality, the measurement vector norm law is used with
a proper variable change to simplify the nonlinear cost func-
tion, and calibration is performed using the linear least-squares
method which is simpler and faster than other optimization
methods.
2
S Khankalantary et al
But, in the methods mentioned above for accelerometer cal-
ibration, the effect of temperature on the error coefficients has
not been considered. Due to the high sensitivity of silicon to
temperature, MEMS sensors which are made from silicon are
highly dependent on temperature compared to other optical or
mechanical sensors [34]. To study the behavior of sensors in
different temperatures, the chamber is used in which temper-
ature varies from −40 ◦ C to +80 ◦ C. Two common methods
for thermal calibration of inertial sensors are Soak and Ramp
methods. In the Soak method, the temperature is kept constant
at different points by the chamber and after stabilization at the
specific temperature (1–3 h), calibration is performed. But, in
the Ramp method, calibration is performed while the temper-
ature is changed linearly several times so that the sensor exper-
iences all temperatures to obtain dependency of error paramet-
ers on the temperature [9].
For thermal calibration of the accelerometer, the sensor is
placed in different positions using the positioning table in the
chamber and the error coefficients are obtained in each tem-
perature. In the second step, the dependency of these coef-
ficients is obtained using various methods. For example in
[35, 36] bias, in [37] bias and scale factor and in [38–40] bias,
scale factor and non-orthogonality have been considered as
a temperature-dependent polynomial and regression methods
have been used to obtain coefficients of these polynomials.
In addition to regression, other methods have also been used
to model the dependency of the accelerometer coefficients
on temperature. Authors of [16] have used the neural-fuzzy
method and authors of [41, 42] have used neural networks to
compensate the temperature of the accelerometer.
As mentioned, the above methods use the chamber to cal-
ibrate the accelerometer which is costly and time-consuming.
Unlike conventional methods, this study uses a simple device
like a fan or a hairdryer to change the temperature of the sensor
instead of the chamber and expensive devices, and dependency
of the sensors’ error coefficients is obtained using cubic spline
interpolation and compensated.
The rest of this paper is organized as follows. Section 2
describes the output model of the accelerometer. In section 3,
the proposed field calibration method for obtaining the
error coefficients, including bias, scale factor, and non-
orthogonality is introduced. In section 4, the dependency of the
error coefficients on temperature is modeled. Section 5 com-
pares the results of calibrating the accelerometer and temper-
ature compensation simulated in MATLAB with conventional
methods. Section 6 presents the results of calibration and tem-
perature compensation on the MPU6050 sensor. Finally, the
paper is concluded in section 7.
2. Output model of the accelerometer
As mentioned before, the sensor’s output is not accurate due
to error factors. These errors are considered as parameters of
the output that can be obtained and compensated through cal-
ibration. Accelerometer’s output in this paper is considered as
below equation [10, 20]
⃗am = S⃗a + ⃗b + M⃗a +⃗n (1)
Meas. Sci. Technol. 32 (2021) 045102 S Khankalantary et al

T
where ⃗am = [amx amy amz ] is the measured acceleration vector Moreover, since non-orthogonality coefficients are small,
T their square can be neglected, thus equation (4) is simplified
 sensor, ⃗a =[ax ay az ] is the real acceleration vector,
by the
sx 0 0 as follows
S =  0 sy 0  is the scale factor matrix, ⃗b = [bx by bz ]
T
∥⃗a∥ = g2 = k211 a2mx + 2k21 k22 amx amy + 2k31 k33 amx amz
0 0 sz  
0 0 0 − 2b1 k11 amx − 2b2 k21 amx − 2b3 k31 amx + k222 a2my
is the bias vector, M =  m1 0 0  is the non-orthogonality + 2k32 k33 amy amz − 2k22 b2 amy − 2k32 b3 amy
m2 m3 0
+ k233 a2mz − 2b3 k33 amz + b21 + b22 + b23 (6)
matrix and ⃗n is a Gaussian noise vector with zero mean and
standard deviation of σ. Now, the above equation can be rewritten as equation (7)
3. Field calibration of the accelerometer − a2mz
1 2
In the field calibration methods, nature laws are used to the = [amx 2amx amy 2amx amz 2amx a2my 2amy amz 2amy 2amz 1]∗
k233
absence of accurate laboratory devices. Here, the earth gravity  2 
k11
vector is used as the reference. The main idea is similar to the k k 
multiple position laboratory test and describes that magnitude  21 22 
 
 k31 k33 
of the measured acceleration in static state is equal to the mag-  
 b1 k11 + b2 k21 + b3 k31 
nitude of the gravity vector plus error factors, and this law is  2 
 k22 .
described as in equation (2) [26, 28].  
k k 
 32 33 
 
2
∥⃗a∥ = a2x + a2y + a2z = ∥⃗g∥ .
2
(2)  22 2
k b + k b
32 3 
 
 b3 k33 
Using this law and putting the sensor in n different posi- b1 + b2 + b3 − g
2 2 2 2

tions, the cost function is obtained as in equation (3) [26]. (7)

∑
n
J(b, S, M) = (a2x + a2y + a2z − g2 ). (3) If n measurements are performed in different positions, the
i=1 equation is transformed into L = AX through solving which
with least-squares method, error coefficients including bias,
The error coefficients, including bias, scale factor, and scale factor and non-orthogonality are obtained.
non-orthogonality, are obtained using various optimization
methods by minimizing the nonlinear cost function. For 4. Temperature dependency of the error
instance, authors of [26] have used the Newton method, coefficients of the accelerometer
authors of [29] have used the Levenberg–Marquardt method,
in [21] the quasi-Newton method has been used, authors of The error coefficients, including bias, scale factor, and
[28, 40] have used the Gauss–Newton method and authors of non-orthogonality, depend on the ambient temperature. For
[43] and [2] have used downhill simplex and unscented Kal- instance, by changing temperature from −30 ◦ C to +55 ◦ C,
man filter respectively to minimize the cost function. an accelerometer’s bias might vary from +100 mg to −80 mg
But all these methods are time-consuming and complicated, [41]. To demonstrate this dependency, a polynomial is used,
require initial values, and are noise-sensitive. Therefore, this and its order should be selected such that over-fit does not
paper presents a method by modifying the cost function and occur, the computations do not become complicated, and the
uses the linear least-squares method to minimize the cost func- required accuracy is provided. Most studies like [34, 44, 45]
tion and obtain the coefficients. This method is described in the have used curve fitting to estimate this polynomial, usually of
following. orders 2 or 3. But these methods do not perform well when
By substituting equation (1) in equations (2) and (4) is there is a large volume of data, and they do not follow the
obtained. same variation pattern. Therefore, this study presents the cubic
2
spline interpolation method. This method considers data at
∥⃗a∥ = g2 = k211 a2mx + k221 a2mx + k231 a2mx + 2k21 k22 amx amy multiple intervals and estimates a polynomial of order 3 for
+ 2k31 k32 amx amy + 2k31 k33 amx amz − 2amx b1 k11 each interval. The general form of the piece-wise polynomial
− 2amx b2 k21 − 2amx b3 k31 + k222 a2my + k232 a2my obtained using the cubic spline method is represented as the
equation (8) where the polynomial P(x) represents the depend-
+ 2k32 k33 amy amz − 2k22 b2 amy − 2k32 b3 amy ency of error coefficients, including bias, scale factor, and non-
+ k233 a2mz − 2amz b3 k33 + b21 + b22 + b23 (4) orthogonality on temperature [46, 47].

which kii and bi are equal to 
 P0 (x) = a0 x3 + b0 x2 + c0 x + d0 x1 ⩽ x < x2



 P1 (x) = a1 x3 + b1 x2 + c1 x + d1 x2 ⩽ x < x3
1 1 1 m1 m2 P(x) = .
k11 = , k22 = , k33 = , k21 = , k31 = ,  ..
sx sy sz sy sz 
 .



m3 bx by bz Pn−1 (x) = an−1 x3 + bn−1 x2 + cn−1 x + dn−1 xn−1 ⩽ x < xn
k32 = , b1 = , b 2 = , b3 = . (5)
sz sx sy sz (8)
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Meas. Sci. Technol. 32 (2021) 045102
Figure 1. Steps of the field calibration and temperature
compensation of the accelerometer in this study.
Indeed, as mentioned, some studies have modeled temper-
ature dependency of the coefficients using other methods like
neural networks, which are complicated and time-consuming
and are not suitable for engineering applications [48].
5. Simulation results of calibration of the
accelerometer
Steps of the field calibration and temperature compensation
of the accelerometer are shown in figure 1. To study the cal-
ibration process, MATLAB is used. To this end, the output
of the accelerometer, similar to equation (1) with a Gaus-
sian noise with zero mean and a standard deviation of 0.1 is
simulated in different static states and ten different temper-
atures. After recording the outputs of the accelerometer, the
bias, scale factor, and non-orthogonality coefficients are cal-
culated at each temperature using the proposed field calibra-
tion method, and their dependency on temperature is modeled
using the cubic spline interpolation. Then, the error coeffi-
cients and their temperature dependency are compensated, and
the calibrated output of the accelerometer is obtained.
First, to study the superiority of the proposed field cal-
ibration method over other methods, the temperature is kept
4
S Khankalantary et al
Figure 2. Simulating real output of accelerometer in MATLAB for
calibration.
constant, and the sensor is put in n different static states.
For this purpose in MATLAB, a fixed scenario with con-
stant conditions is defined for the accelerometer in which
roll (w), pitch (θ), and yaw (ψ) vary sinusoidally. Then the
real accelerometer output obtained from the transformation
matrix is shown in figure 2. By adding bias, scale factor,
non-orthogonality, and Gaussian noise to the real accelero-
meter, the measured acceleration can be produced. Then the
error coefficients of the accelerometer, including bias, scale
factor, and non-orthogonality, are obtained using the pro-
posed method, and the results are compared with the ones
obtained using the most common optimization methods like
Levenberg–Marquardt and Newton method in table 1.
To consider the repeatability effect, this process is carried
out ten times with different noises and the average of the res-
ults is calculated.
As can be seen in table 1, the proposed method is more
accurate than other methods. In this simulation, the initial val-
ues of the Newton and Levenberg–Marquardt methods are
   
b1 (0) 2.5
   
b2 (0)  3 
   
b3 (0)  4 
   
   
sx (0)  2.7
   
equal to x0 =    
sy (0)  = 2.5 which is somehow far from
   
sz (0)  2 
   
m1 (0) 0.1
   
   
m2 (0) 0.2
m3 (0) 0.5
reality to specify the advantage of independency from the ini-
tial value in the proposed method. It is obvious and men-
tioned in [26], the final solution of Newton and Levenberg–
Marquardt methods depends on the initial value and if the ini-
tial value is far from the real value, an improper response might
be obtained and the function might be trapped in the local
Meas. Sci. Technol. 32 (2021) 045102 S Khankalantary et al

Table 1. Estimation of error coefficients using proposed field calibration and comparison with other methods in MATLAB.

Error coefficients Real value Newton method Levenberg–Marquardt method Proposed method

bx (m s−2 ) 0.3 1.344 0.699 0.302

by (m s−2 ) −0.6 0.891 1.018 −0.606
bz (m s−2 ) 0.3 −0.484 1.053 0.319
sx 1.1 1.295 1.132 1.1
sy 0.95 1.267 1.074 0.952
sz 1.2 1.201 1.178 1.198
m1 0.001 0.866 0.048 0.012
m2 0.002 0.84 0.045 0.018
m3 0.003 0.826 0.212 0.034
MSE 0 5.726 3.397 0.074 × 10−2

Table 2. MSE of accelerometer before and after calibration.

MSE after MSE after

calibration calibration
MSE before without thermal with thermal
Axis calibration compensation compensation

X 1.0067 0.0235 0.0076

Y 0.358 0.0213 0.0185
Z 0.3802 0.0205 0.01

minimum. In [26], it has been suggested to put the sensor in

six proper positions to obtain the bias and scale factor values
as the initial value, which is very time-consuming and adds an
additional step to the calibration process.
To study the effect of temperature on error coefficients, the
sensor is put in different positions and 10 different temper-
atures simultaneously. The accelerometer is put in 50 differ- Figure 3. Accelerometer error before and after field calibration
ent states in each temperature which these states, like the last along X axis.
section, vary sinusoidally, and the dependency of the coeffi-
cients to temperature is simulated as equations of order 2 and
3 plus noise. The coefficients are obtained at each temper-
ature, and the piece-wise polynomial is calculated using the
cubic spline method to describe the temperature dependency.
To validate the results, the sensors are again put in different
positions and temperatures and calibration and temperature
compensation are performed. Figures 3–5 show the error of
the accelerometer without calibration, with field calibration
without considering the effect of temperature, and field cal-
ibration with temperature compensation for three axes of the
accelerometer. Table 2 shows the total error of the accelero-
meter after field calibration with and without considering the
temperature effect on ten Monte-Carlo iterations. The results
show that when the field calibration is applied to the accel-
erometer considering the temperature effects, the results are
improved.
Figure 4. Accelerometer error before and after field calibration
along Y axis.
6. Empirical results of calibration of the MPU6050
accelerometer
methods can be used to reduce error, it would be a great help
For more accurate investigation, the proposed field calibration for various industries. First, to study the proposed field calibra-
and the temperature compensation methods are applied to an tion method, the accelerometer is put in 20 different positions
MPU6050 MEMS accelerometer, as shown in figure 6. This at a constant temperature without any devices, and it is kept
sensor has extensive applications due to its low cost, but it has a in each position for 10 s. There is no scenario for putting the
higher error than other sensors. If low-cost and fast calibration sensors in predetermined states and it is sufficient to put the

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Meas. Sci. Technol. 32 (2021) 045102 S Khankalantary et al

Figure 7. Three axis positioning table.

Figure 5. Accelerometer error before and after field calibration
along Z axis.
Table 3. Estimation of error coefficients of MEMS MPU6050
accelerometer using proposed field calibration and comparison with
other methods.
Error Newton Levenberg– Proposed
coefficients method Marquardt method method

sx 2.012 1.4709 0.9983

sy 1.9745 4.6855 1.0038
sz 5.4567 4.7945 1.0036
bx (m s−2 ) 2.5571 2.6613 0.0071
by (m s−2 ) 3.9825 4.8187 0.0005
bz (m s−2 ) 3.2342 2.2683 −0.028
m1 2.4573 2.3187 0.0013
m2 3.2232 3.101 0.0078
m3 4.002 3.7393 −0.0006

Levenberg–Marquardt methods. To describe the dependency

Figure 6. MEMS MPU6050 accelerometer used in practical testing.
sensor in different and proper states so that positive, negat-
ive, large, and small accelerations are applied to three axes of
the accelerometer. The error coefficients, including bias, scale
factor, and non-orthogonality, are obtained using the proposed
field calibration method. The output of the accelerometer and
the gyroscope are used to detect if the accelerometer is in a
static state. When the output of the MEMS gyroscope is nearby
zero in all three axes, and output variations of the accelero-
meter after a low-pass filter used to remove noise, are less than
a determined threshold, the accelerometer is in a static state,
and its output can be used in the calibration process. Since the
gyroscope itself has an error, it is calibrated first, and its bias
error is obtained for the three axes. To calibrate the gyroscope,
the sensor is kept constant for a few seconds, and gyro bias
coefficients, which are the essential error factors are obtained
after averaging the output or using the Allen Variance method.
Table 3 represents the error coefficient estimation res-
ults, including bias, scale factor, and non-orthogonality
using the proposed field calibration method, Newton, and
of the Levenberg–Marquardt and Newton methods on the ini-
tial condition, the initial values are considered to be the same
as the simulation values and a bit far from the desired values.
However, these values offer no information about the per-
formance of these methods. To evaluate the methods and com-
pare their accuracy with each other, this sensor is installed
on a three-axis positioning table shown in figure 7. Then it
is put in six desired positions at a constant temperature (about
35 ◦ C), and the output values of the sensor are recorded. Then
the error coefficients obtained from the three mentioned meth-
ods are applied to the output of the sensor, and the difference
of the real acceleration (that is calculated from the positioning
table as the reference value) and output of the calibrated accel-
erometer (that is calculated from equation (1)) are plotted in
figures 8–10 for the three axes in this 6 static positions, and
their MSE is also calculated in table 4.
As can be seen, the proposed field method outperforms
other methods.
Now, the temperature compensation method of the acceler-
ometer is studied. Figure 11 shows the output of the MPU6050
accelerometer along the x-axis, in which the sensor is in a con-
stant state, and the temperature varies from 35 ◦ C to 75 ◦ C.

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Meas. Sci. Technol. 32 (2021) 045102 S Khankalantary et al

Table 4. MSE of MEMS MPU6050 accelerometer output after

calibration with different methods.
MSE of MSE of
MSE of Levenberg– proposed
Axis Newton method Marquardt method method

X 6.995 6.516 1.983 × 10−5

Y 22.941 15.715 1.313 × 10−4
Z 8.035 14.523 8.704 × 10−5

Figure 10. MEMS MPU6050 accelerometer error after calibration

with different methods along Z axis.

Figure 8. MEMS MPU6050 accelerometer error after calibration

with different methods along X axis.

Figure 11. The temperature dependency of MEMS MPU6050

accelerometer along X axis.

Figure 9. MEMS MPU6050 accelerometer error after calibration
with different methods along Y axis.
This figure shows the temperature dependency of the error
coefficients.
To investigate the temperature dependency of the error
coefficients, most studies use the chamber. But [49] has used a
cooler and heater fan, as shown in figure 12 and authors of [45]
have used no device to compensate for the temperature effect
that its temperature variation is very small and not reliable and
it has used laboratory devices for calibration and finding the
error coefficients. Since the proposed method is a field method,
it requires no external device, and the bias, scale factor, and
non-orthogonality coefficients are obtained by manual move-
ment of the sensor and putting it in different static states.
Temperature compensation is carried out by changing the tem-
perature using a simple device like a hairdryer. The temper-
ature varies from 30 ◦ C to 75 ◦ C and vice versa. A loop is
generated because the sensor might show different behavior
while increasing and decreasing the temperature, therefore,
this effect is reduced well by creating the loop and consider-
ing both increasing and decreasing temperatures. Also, if the
output of the hairdryer hits the sensor directly, noise is gener-
ated. To resolve this problem, the sensor is covered by a small
porcelain bowl so that the heat does not hit it directly. This
increases the run time of the experiment compared to when
the warm wind hits the sensor directly, but this is unavoidable
for preventing noise generation.

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Meas. Sci. Technol. 32 (2021) 045102 S Khankalantary et al

accurate laboratory devices, and cannot be used in the envir-

onment. Thus, field calibration methods are used. The rule that
the norm of the acceleration vector measured by the accel-
erometer in a static state is equal to the gravity vector is
used to define a nonlinear cost function, which is minim-
ized in many studies using nonlinear optimization methods
like Newton, and Levenberg–Marquardt to obtain the error
coefficients of the accelerometer. However, all these meth-
ods are time-consuming, complicated, and require an initial
value. Therefore, this paper simplified the cost function by
a proper variable change and obtained the error coefficients
of the accelerometer, including bias, scale factor, and non-
orthogonality using the linear least-squares method, which is
straightforward and fast and does not require initial values.
Also, the MEMS accelerometer is temperature dependent
due to its silicon effect. To compensate for the temperature
effect, the error coefficients of the accelerometer are modeled
as a temperature-dependent polynomial of order 2 or 3. But
using only one polynomial is not proper when there is a large
amount of data that does not follow the same variation pattern.
Figure 12. Experimental setup to change the temperature in [49], Therefore, this study presented the piece-wise polynomial
reproduced with permission.
estimation using cubic spline interpolation, and the temperat-
ure dependency of the error coefficients of the accelerometer
Table 5. MSE of MEMS MPU6050 accelerometer before and after was modeled using a piece-wise linear polynomial of order
calibration.
3 in different intervals. The simulation results in MATLAB
MSE after showed the proper performance of the proposed field calib-
MSE after calibration calibration ration method compared to other methods like Newton and
MSE before without thermal with thermal Levenberg–Marquardt. Also, desired results were obtained for
Axis calibration compensation compensation temperature compensation using cubic spline interpolation.
X 0.4881 1.112 × 10−2 0.53 × 10−2 Practical calibration results on the MPU6050 accelerometer
Y 0.9118 3.18 × 10−2 0.92 × 10−2 verified the proper performance of the field calibration method
Z 0.4196 1.855 × 10−2 0.82 × 10−2 and temperature compensation.

The sensor is put in various static states manually while
changing the temperature, and the accelerometer output is
recorded in each temperature. The error coefficients are
obtained at different temperatures using the proposed calib-
ration method, and their temperature dependency is calcu-
lated using the cubic spline method. Similar to the previous
section, to validate the obtaining temperature dependency of
the error coefficients using the cubic spline method, the sensor
is installed on a three-axis positioning table, put in differ-
ent positions, and the sensor temperature is changed between
30 ◦ C to 40 ◦ C using a hairdryer.
MSE values of the MEMS MPU6050 accelerometer before
calibration, after field calibration without temperature com-
pensation and after field calibration with temperature com-
pensation, are given in table 5.
7. Conclusion
Accuracy of the MEMS accelerometer is reduced due to the
presence of various errors, and it does not perform well;
calibration can be used to reduce these errors. But laborat-
ory calibration methods are not proper for low-cost MEMS
sensors because they are costly and time-consuming, require
ORCID iDs
Saeed Ranjbaran  https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5879-3371
Saeed Ebadollahi  https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2772-5880
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