A method for amplitude–phase calibration of tri-axial accelerometers in the low-frequency range is proposed, based on a linear slide, used to excite all the axes of the accelerometer at the same time, and a laser Doppler vibrometer (LDV) as a reference. Results show that the phase is a critical aspect to consider in calibration, more than the amplitude, and the comparison with the theoretical model is useful to verify the hypotheses. Different behaviours result, depending on the measuring chain.

A comparison among three methods for the calibration of tri-axial MEMS accelerometers is presented, paying attention to the uncertainty assessment of each method. The first method is performed according to the ISO 16063 standards. Two innovative methods are analysed, both suitable for in-field application. For each method, the main contributions to the measurement uncertainty have been identified and evaluated, in order to define their most suitable field of application.

Low-frequency vibration measurements are of great interest in many fields like energy production, structural health monitoring (SHM) of buildings, geotechnical applications, human vibration and bio-dynamics, mainly because of the increasing development of MEMS embedded in mobile devices and in applications in the field of the Internet of Things (IoT). We investigated the effectiveness and efficaciousness of some available calibration techniques to promote their aware, widespread, use.