hi
i am a student looking for a way to find a objects x y and z and send this information to the pc
i have tried using an accelerometer but it can only tell me the rotation and i nedd to know how much the object is moving without using a caamera
thanks in advance!
An XYZ accelerometer will give you the orientation with respect to gravity when you're not moving. If you want to use an accelerometer to measure displacement, you'll have to integrate the acceleration twice, after removing the gravity vector (9.8g downward in world coordinates). The problem is that when you rotate fast, you'll also see acceleration, which is not caused by displacement. Also, you have to assume that the gravity vector will remain constant in direction during displacement.
Integrating twice will also give a lot of offset over long term, so this would only work over short time frames.
In 'professional' systems, the orientation is estimated by a combined accelerometer, gyroscope and magnetometer (generally Kalman filters are used here). Then, you at least know the direction of the gravity vector. When that is known, you could use the accelerometer for short term evaluation of displacement, and some other measured as described by Douglas or Mark for drift correction. But I guess that would be too much for a student assignment 
An XYZ accelerometer will give you the orientation with respect to gravity when you're not moving. If you want to use an accelerometer to measure displacement, you'll have to integrate the acceleration twice, after removing the gravity vector (9.8g downward in world coordinates). The problem is that when you rotate fast, you'll also see acceleration, which is not caused by displacement. Also, you have to assume that the gravity vector will remain constant in direction during displacement.
Integrating twice will also give a lot of offset over long term, so this would only work over short time frames.
In 'professional' systems, the orientation is estimated by a combined accelerometer, gyroscope and magnetometer (generally Kalman filters are used here). Then, you at least know the direction of the gravity vector. When that is known, you could use the accelerometer for short term evaluation of displacement, and some other measured as described by Douglas or Mark for drift correction. But I guess that would be too much for a student assignment
