The Intelligent Inclinometer Design

Inclinometer is the specific equipment for measuring bore inclination of both inclined and directional wells. Increasing expectation of bore inclination precision has been required by various types of Geotechnical Engineers since 1990s, however, most previous developed inclinometers could not meet the market demand, and inclinometers built with traditional structural principle have been discarded, those equipped with more advanced structural principle emerged. Based on the inclinometer's system composition and working principle, the paper combines the 51 series microprocessor system development theory and process, and primarily investigates the design of software and hardware of both underground testing and ground monitoring system.The Underground Test System of inclinometer employs the ATMEL's 89S52 microprocessor as processor core, ADXL203 dual axis accelerometers as test sensor, ICL7135 as A/D conversion device, the system is equipped with multi-switch four sensor channels with A, B two-way set aside, individual AD590 temperature sensor, and communicate with the Ground Monitoring System through the RS485 bus. Ground Monitoring System employs the STC's STC89C516RD+ microprocessor as process core, human-machine interface is achieved by combination of LCD and buttons, the system also employs FLASH chip as the memory part, and, through the RS485 bus, communicates with the Underground System and conducts data transmission between RS232 bus and the PC.Both Underground System and Ground Monitoring system can be used separately as independent function module. Underground System can be used as intelligent inclinometer sensor while Ground System as digital auto-reading instrument. Thus the whole system has strong flexibility and maintainability. The software of the system, in C51 language, is programmed under KEIL uVersion2 developing environment.Despite the current rapid development of digital circuit system, 51series microprocessor, with increasing advancement of new series and competitive cost-effective rate, still plays a significant role. Microprocessor has strong stability, and can adapt to poor wild natural environment, it's also suitable for deal with less strong real-time control system, and requires simple maintenance and expansion because of short development cycle. Thus the system, with microprocessor, provides a low cost yet high efficiency inclinometer implementation strategy, which achieved good results in practice.