A new MEMS accelerometer is expected to provide the performance of a $17,000 accelerometer and be unusually accurate at a MEMS pricing level, which will be less than one-tenth of the $17,000 — even at low production levels. Its sensitivity and stability are good and overall, this new accelerometer outperforms the relatively costly accelerometers employed to navigate the Space Shuttle.

The development was spearheaded by Dr. Richard Waters who started working at the Space and Naval Warfare Systems Center San Diego (SPAWAR) in 1999. From his work as a scientist and his academic studies, he was able to envision an accelerometer based on Fabry-Perot interferometer technology that could offer equal or greater performance at a lower cost than those currently in use.

Waters proposed combining the Fabry-Perot technology with MEMS technology enabling the device to be built using the proven microelectronic processing techniques of the semiconductor integrated circuit industry. This helped to lower costs.

While proving the technology was a surprise, the bigger surprise was that the performance was far better than anyone had anticipated. "In fact, it was a device that achieved world-record sensitivity right out of the box," said Brad Chisum, formerly of SPAWAR. Chisum met Waters in March of 2003 while both were working at SPAWAR with Waters working on the device design team and Chisum was working on the project's manufacturing team.

At that time, Waters was granted a market study that was coordinated and funded by the CCAT (Center for Commercialization of Advanced Technology) program administered out of San Bernardino. At the beginning of 2005, the team engineered a prototype that could be demonstrated within a laboratory, but could not be effectively showcased outside that environment. Engineering a working stand-alone prototype designed for customer demonstrations was the next logical step.

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