re: MEMS Sensor Integration
I strongly believe that the blending of MEMS sensor data provides a key value for application developers. The term “sensor hub” appears often in press releases and refers to this type of integration:
“A sensor hub off-loads the application processor from managing all the sensors studding a modern smartphone, tablet, laptop, wearable device, or Internet of Things (IoT) device. Microsoft, for instance (following Apple's lead as does Samsung and most other smartphone and tablet makers) mandated that Window 8 developers include a full complement of inertial sensors. A sensor hub helps manage them by performing the nine-axis sensor fusion across three triple-axis micro-electromechanical system (MEMS) inertial sensors -- accelerometer, gyroscope, and magnetometer -- thereby freeing up the application processor to be more responsive to the user.”
eetimes.com
InvenSense’s algorithm is called MotionFusion and seems to provide similar functionality:
Embedded MotionApps – Features and Benefits
A complete software solution: Algorithms for bias calibration and sensor fusion, a board support package, and APIs Processor offload: MotionFusion processing runs on the IMU/MPU Digital Motion Processor (DMP™). Lowers processing load by as much as 10X, and reduces I/O bandwidth by up to 3x. Small code size: Software runs on existing Microcontrollers or RFICs. Eliminates the need for a dedicated microcontroller for MotionProcessing. Fixed point operation: All motion processing tasks optimized for low-cost microcontrollers.
About Our Embedded MotionApps™ Platform
The Embedded MotionApps Platform software and the companion 9-axis MotionTracking™ devices from InvenSense provide a complete solution to embedded system developers that delivers 10-axis MotionFusion™ data encompassing 3-axis gyroscope, accelerometer, and compass for Microcontroller-based environments
For me, this is the primary arena to judge the winners from the losers and the also-rans.
I also think that no matter how good a sensor hub is, developers will still want direct access to the sensor data. No OEM will allow a sensor integrator to limit the access to raw data. |
