How to Calibrate Android Accelerometer & Reduce Noise, Eliminate Gravity

Question

So, I've been struggling with this problem for some time, and haven't had any luck tapping the wisdom of the internets and related SO posts on the subject.

I am writing an Android app that uses the ubiquitous Accelerometer, but I seem to be getting an incredible amount of "noise" even while at rest, and can't seem to figure out how to deal with it as my readings need to be relatively accurate. I thought that maybe my phone (HTC Incredible) was dysfunctional, but the sensor seems to work well with other games and apps I've played.

I've tried to use various "filters" but I can't seem to wrap my mind around them. I understand that gravity must be dealt within some way, and maybe that's where I am going wrong. Currently I have tried this, adapted from a SO answer, which refers to an example from the iPhone SDK:

                accel[0] = event.values[0] * kFilteringFactor + accel[0] * (1.0f - kFilteringFactor);
                accel[1] = event.values[1] * kFilteringFactor + accel[1] * (1.0f - kFilteringFactor);


                double x = event.values[0] - accel[0];
                double y = event.values[1] - accel[1];

The poster says to "play with" the kFilteringFactor value (kFilteringFactor = 0.1f in the example) until satisfied. Unfortunately I still seem to get a lot of noise, and all this seems to do is make the readings come in as tiny decimals, which doesn't help me all that much, and it appears to just make the sensor less sensitive. The math centers of my brain are also atrophied from years of neglect, so I don't completely understand how this filter is working.

Can someone explain to me in some detail how to go about getting a useful reading from the accelerometer? A succinct tutorial would be an incredible help, as I haven't found a really good one (at least aimed at my level of knowledge). I get frustrated because I feel like all of this should be more apparent to me. Any help or direction would be greatly appreciated, and of course I can provide more samples from my code if needed.

I hope I'm not asking to be spoon-fed too much; I wouldn't be asking unless I've been trying to figure it our for a while. It also looks like there is some interest from other SO members.

Answer 1

To get a correct reading from the accelerometer you need to use the equation speed = SQRT(x*x + y*y + z*z). Using this, when the phone is at rest the speed will be that of gravity - 9.8m/s. So if you subtract that (SensorManager.GRAVITY_EARTH) then when the phone is at rest, you will have a reading of 0 m/s. As for noise, Blrfl might be right about cheap accelerometers, even when my phone is at rest, it continuously flickers a few fractions of a metre per second. You could just set a small threshold e.g 0.4m/s and if the speed doesn't go over that, then it is at rest.