Comment by Angus Peart on October 27, 2009 at 3:49am

I know how binary and endian works, but thanks anyway ;)

With a range of 2000 it would want to have nothing less than 16bit. I know of autopilots using up to 24bit for their inertial sensors. 16bit doesn't make this "SERIOUS" (in capitals), it merely makes it a worthy of consideration.

There is a lot more to a gyro sensor than you realise. The ADXRS gyros for example have a temperature sensor, on the die itself, meaning you can properly compensate them for temperature, but they are also have superior vibration rejection which all of these cheaper gyros lack, sadly.

Comment by Angus Peart on October 27, 2009 at 4:53am

Why the temperature output? Flexability. It doesn't lock you into using onboard A/D converters, so you can A/D that temperature with 24bits if you wish.

Adding a magnetometer solves the GPS problem for an AHRS, but that would increase the price by $10...

Most of the "real" IMU autopilots available or currently being developed are using the ADXRS gyros. Paparazzi and Deans new IMU Attopilot are just two examples of this. It isn't a coincidence that all these people are using this series of gyro, they all did their research and came upon the same conclusion.
All I am saying is that's no coincidence, there is a reason why they chose which gyros they did.

Comment by Scott Plunkett on October 27, 2009 at 7:15am

It is always interesting to me the debate that goes on over these amazing devices...the reality is, for the dollars, this is incredilbe technology- and there are going to be companies that fill multiple markets with product in a wide variety of price ranges. The question then for us is to select the one(s) that fit our goals and requirements. If this product fills a need in the marketplace, it will survive...if not it will not. I expect that we will see others develop similar products (3 axis in one package) soon, and that they will be across all the price ranges, but this one may be in the pricing sweet spot. Would we all like to have a miraculously inexpensive perfect AHRS, sure...until then, lets just hope companies like this keep pumping out amazing hardware we can use to make out inexpensive products better!

Comment by Brian Wolfe on October 27, 2009 at 9:30am

I'll withhold judgment until they release the full specs. It does have a built in temp sensor, but they don't talk about (at least that I saw) noise, bandwidth, resonant frequency or drift. Even when using some form of drift compensation, which with mems sensors we are forced to do, you get better dynamic performance if you can minimze the contributution of the correcting sensor.

Nice to see someone finally get all three axis in one chip though.

Comment by Rana on October 27, 2009 at 11:28am

It's a great break through in the Digital Gyroscope Technology !

I just have a telephonic conversation in R&D department of InvenSense, during this conversation, I specifically asked that " Certain Brand Gyros (Except Analog Devices) are prone to vibrations, would your product ITG3200 (Single Chip, 3-Axis, Digital Gyroscope, which is targeted @3US$ price), be able to match the performance of those manufactured by Analog Devices ?"

I was was informed by th technical person from R&D that No Gyro in the world is 100% immune to vibration, there is certain frequency, which is the resonant frequencies of the gyro, if vibration frequencies match the rasonant frequency of the gyros then only at that time it is likely to cause error.

When I asked him about what frequency would be the resonant frequency of the ITG3200, then he told me that it is confidential. The regular production will happen in 2010.

I shall be getting few samples of ITG3200 right now as special case.

Cheers !

Rana

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