Tuesday, 27 March 2007

Motion-Sensing Comes to Mobile Phones

The mobile phones of today are becoming more complex with regard to the technology they offer. The technology behind gaming consoles is now making an entry into the mobile phone realm. This technology will allow the phone to act like a motion-sensing mouse...

The mobile phones of today are becoming more complex with regard to the technology they offer. The technology behind gaming consoles is now making an entry into the mobile phone realm.

This technology will allow the phone to act like a motion-sensing mouse that lets you browse the mobile Internet.

Motion-sensing technology was pointed out as a key factor for the development of mobile games.

"The possibilities are endless with this technology. It's about thinking of new ways to play games, that might be played by very different people than we are used to," said developer Paul Coulton.

"Wii has had an amazing impact but this technology in mobile phones could ultimately be even more dramatic," he added.

Analog Devices’ Christophe Lemaire, the company's marketing manager, said the market would see a new face when accelerometers enter mobile phones.

"My sense is we are on the edge of seeing an explosion of more and more devices using motion sensors, and specifically MEM (microelectromechanical) accelerometers," he said. "We are already working with all the tier one phone manufacturers as well with other third-party application developers to fuel this explosion."

An accelerometer is a device for measuring acceleration. An accelerometer inherently measures its own motion (locomotion), in contrast to a device based on remote sensing.

One application for accelerometers is to measure gravity, wherein an accelerometer is specifically configured for use in gravimetry. Such a device is called a gravimeter. Accelerometers are being incorporated into more and more personal electronic devices such as mobile phones, media players and handheld gaming devices. In particular, more and more smartphones are incorporating accelerometers for step counters, user interface control, and switching between portrait and landscape modes.

Accelerometers are used along with gyroscopes in inertial guidance systems, as well as in many other scientific and engineering systems. One of the most common uses for Micro Electro-Mechanical System (MEMS) accelerometers is in airbag deployment systems for modern automobiles. In this case the accelerometers are used to detect the rapid negative acceleration of the vehicle to determine when a collision has occurred and the severity of the collision.