A novel design of a circuit used for NTC thermistor linearization is proposed. The novelty of the proposed design consists in a specific combination of two linearization circuits, a serial-parallel resistive voltage divider and a two-stage piecewise linear analog-to-digital converter. At the output of the first linearization circuit the quasi-linear voltage is obtained. To remove the residual voltage nonlinearity, the second linearization circuit, i.e., a two-stage piecewise linear analog-to-digital converter is employed. This circuit is composed of two flash analog-to-digital converters. The first analog-to-digital converter is piecewise linear and it is actually performing the linearization, while the second analog-to-digital converter is linear and it is performing the reduction of the quantization error introduced by the first converter. After the linearization is performed, the maximal absolute value of a difference between the measured and real temperatures is 0.014°C for the temperature range between −25 and 75°C, and 0.001°C for the temperature range between 10 and 40°C.

The paper addresses the problem of experimental studies of miniature tilt sensors based on low-range accelerometers belonging to Microelectromechanical Systems (MEMS). A custom computer controlled test rig is proposed, whose kinematics allows an arbitrary tilt angle to be applied (i.e. its two components: pitch and roll over the full angular range). The related geometrical relationships are presented along with the respective uncertainties resulting from their application. Metrological features of the test rig are carefully evaluated and briefly discussed. Accuracy of the test rig is expressed in terms of the respective uncertainties, as recommended by ISO; its scope of application as well as the related limitations are indicated. Even though the test rig is mostly composed of standard devices, like rotation stages and incremental angle encoder, its performance can be compared with specialized certified machines that are very expensive. Exemplary results of experimental studies of MEMS accelerometers realized by means of the test rig are presented and briefly discussed. Few ways of improving performance of the test rig are proposed.