6DOF Inertial Measurement Unit Targets Industrial Apps

June 10, 2011
Epson's S4E5A0A0 Inertial Measurement Unit has the lowest angular rate output noise based on rate noise density.

Epson S4E5A0A0 IMU

Double T nanostructure

S4E5A0A0 block diagram

Epson's S4E5A0A0 IMU (Inertial Measurement Unit) has the lowest angular rate output noise based on rate noise density. The S4E5A0A0 IMU (Fig. 1) utilizes a Double T nanostructure (Fig. 2). The Q factor with element is about 30,000 or about three times that of a tuning fork appproach. The Double T is supported in the center whereas tuning forks are supported at one end using a cantilevered approach. It detects movement on the Z axis versus the X axis.

Epson's nanostructure utilizes the same low cost creation process as the popular 32 kHz tuning fork design. The S4E5A0A0 has a central set of detecting arms and a pair of driving arms.

The Epson S4E5A0A0 IMU delivers 6 degrees of freedom (DoF). It can measure 3D acceleration and provides gyroscope support. It tracks at 300 degrees/s. The gyroscope bias instability is about 6 degrees/hr. Angular random walk variance is about 0.24 degrees/hr.

The Epson S4E5A0A0 IMU has an SPI and UART interface (Fig. 3). It includes a temperature sensor in addition to the gyro and accelerometers.

Epson's S4E5A0A0 IMU is great for automotive, robotic, industrial, agricultural, nautical, and construction applications. It is about 100x more accurate than consumer grade gyros found in mobile devices.

The S4E5A0A0 IMU package is typically half the height of its competitors. It measures 24mm by 24mm and is 10mm high. Epson certifies factory calibration over the entire operating temperature range of -20°C to +70°C. The 3.3V part uses up to 100mW of power.

Sample pricing is $2500 in single quantities. Contact Epson for quantity pricing.

About the Author

William G. Wong | Senior Content Director - Electronic Design and Microwaves & RF

I am Editor of Electronic Design focusing on embedded, software, and systems. As Senior Content Director, I also manage Microwaves & RF and I work with a great team of editors to provide engineers, programmers, developers and technical managers with interesting and useful articles and videos on a regular basis. Check out our free newsletters to see the latest content.

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I earned a Bachelor of Electrical Engineering at the Georgia Institute of Technology and a Masters in Computer Science from Rutgers University. I still do a bit of programming using everything from C and C++ to Rust and Ada/SPARK. I do a bit of PHP programming for Drupal websites. I have posted a few Drupal modules.  

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