Wireless implementation of mems accelerometer to detect red palm weevil on palms

Red palm weevil infests palm even in its very young stage and completes generation leaving the tree unhealthy or leading to its death [1-2]. Though there are various growing interests implemented on the nondestructive methods for detection of the pest, none of the technology has come into general use of detection. It suffered from logistic or implementation issues. Here the article explains a novel detection of the pest. A simple 3 axis accelerometer which is capacitive micro machined is used to measure the acceleration. The output is in terms of analog voltage which is directly proportional to the acceleration. Deflection of structure is measured using differential capacitor which consists of differential fixed plates with central plate attached to moving mass. Capacitor accelerometers are superior in low frequency ranges. The overview of the system is simple yet a complete process of three blocks which incorporate a sensing device (MEMS accelerometer), a computational core (Micro controller) and serial port for wireless communication (Bluetooth technology).