An accelerometer is the ubiquitous little sensor that tells your tablet when to flip orientation or informs the brain of your quadcopter how closely its actual actions are matching your desired ones.

One of the most difficult aspects of selecting an accelerometer for a particular application is interpreting the accelerometer’s specifications. Often you understand your test requirements well but ...

An optomechanical accelerometer that uses light to measure acceleration. Credit: F Zhou/NIST An accelerometer that uses laser light instead of just mechanical strain can register changes as small as ...