IMU Sensors 101 - Pros & Cons of Sensor Types

Watch this video and learn more about IMU sensors, plus the pros and cons of sensor types.
Learn More ►https://inertialsense.com/imu-sensors...

Chapters:
00:00 What is an IMU?
2:12 Breakdown of AHRS
3:04 What Exactly is a Kalman Filter?
6:41 Is INS For Me?
10:27 Inertial Sensor Application
13:14 How Do I Decide if IMU, AHRS or INS is Best?

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What is an IMU?
IMU, which stands for inertial measurement unit, is the core of our sensor products. This is a sensor with several different sensors inside. It has accelerometers, gyros, magnetometers, and barometers. When you purchase an IMU, you get raw data from the calibrated sensors. When you plug an IMU into the inertial sense firmware, the firmware will tell you what the accelerometer, gyro, magnetometer, and barometer are doing while informing you of the data being seen.

What is AHRS?
The AHRS, attitude heading reference system, contains the same components as IMU and outputs the same raw data. What makes the AHRS special is the Kalman filter. A Kalman filter makes assumptions consisting of a series of algorithms that fuse all data together and outputs what is called the roll, pitch, and yaw. Roll can be thought of as a barrel roll. Pitch is the forward and backward tilt of your device. Yaw is given by the magnetometer and is your compass direction that the application is facing.

How a Kalman Filter Helps
A Kalman filter is a series of algorithms. It takes every single sensor inside the IMU, including the GPS, and fuses all the information together. The Kalman filter uses a wheel odometry sensor to fuse that data with the GPS as well as the data from the magnetometer and gives a more accurate idea based on where the robot was to where it is going because of all the different sensor fusions.

How is INS Different?
The highest grade, or the highest quality version sensor we offer is the INS. The INS is a combination of all the sensors. INS, which stands for inertial navigation system, combines the AHRS and the IMU. The system consists of a bunch of different tasks being accomplished, taking the IMU data and using a Kalman filter to fuse all the IMU data together, then fuses all the fused data from the AHRS together with the GPS, giving a higher precision.

How Do I Decide if IMU, AHRS or INS is Best?
The customer that purchases an IMU is a customer with unlimited resources. These are your multi-million-dollar companies who will spend millions on the product being developed because they have all the resources they need to make their own Kalman filter and build the algorithm themselves.

The person purchasing the AHRS does not need GPS fusion, or they have similar experience making these algorithms, but they want to do their own GPS fusion. These will still be larger companies with a significant number of resources.

The INS is for the person who wants the machine in the market as fast as possible. They do not want to spend their time and resources making their own filter. This is our most popular product because autonomy is up and coming. It is something that is happening today. And if you want to keep up with the market and the trend, you need to act now and click here!

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