Success with the IMU-3000?

I have one lying on my desk here, but unfortunately I haven't had much chance to play with it beyond running the example program on a PC. My first impressions are that a) the software supplied is absolute crap and b) this thing works better than expected.

The software is what you'd expect from a hardware company. The C code is a mix of different naming conventions and styles, badly documented, confusingly written, etc. It seems that at some point it should have worked on Linux, but it has since been hacked to work on Windows (XP only, ffs!). The ARM-EVB board is equally terrible - it's supposed to act as just an I2C bridge to the PC, but an Arduino would have done a better job. Instead of a standard FTDI chip for serial-over-usb they use the standard Atmel boot loader (SAM-BA) to bring out the UART, which requires a driver that only works on XP. Great work, guys! I thought Invensense was a Stanford start-up, where do these people get their programmers? The documentation is equally tragic - confusing, and the sensor fusion itself is mysteriously absent and is downplayed even in the introductory description.

But the chip itself is really, really nice. It requires little setup from the MCU other than uploading 'configuration data' (which I suspect to actually be a piece of code running on an internal DSP, as the .h file says something about a disassembly). Just turn it on, and it spits out quaternions. The PC application has three settings to tune the filter to rely more on the gyros or accelerometers. The highest gyro setting works really well with quick response times and no noticeable drift even after a lot of shaking and moving around. The chip also outputs linear acceleration, which is accelerometers minus gravity, which is a really nice feature to have as well.

So the hardware is nice, the software is crap. I'm thinking about hooking the imu-3000evb up to an Ardupilot and give it a whirl.

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hamadivo November 6, 2010 at 11:32am

Hello,
i'm using IMU-3000 with gumstix. I use FIFO mode (good result).
i will try to use DMP. There is an example with source code http://www.invensense.com/mems/gyro/imu3000.html

@Paulo you can buy it her : http://www.lipoly.de/index.php?main_page=product_info&products_...
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Paulo d'Almeida November 6, 2010 at 6:07am

Hi,

Did you get the IMU-3000EVB direct from InvenSence ? I'm looking for a IMU-3000EVB but without the "Fedex ripoff" :(

Best regards,
Paulo
Inopia October 23, 2010 at 2:33am

I have one lying on my desk here, but unfortunately I haven't had much chance to play with it beyond running the example program on a PC. My first impressions are that a) the software supplied is absolute crap and b) this thing works better than expected.

The software is what you'd expect from a hardware company. The C code is a mix of different naming conventions and styles, badly documented, confusingly written, etc. It seems that at some point it should have worked on Linux, but it has since been hacked to work on Windows (XP only, ffs!). The ARM-EVB board is equally terrible - it's supposed to act as just an I2C bridge to the PC, but an Arduino would have done a better job. Instead of a standard FTDI chip for serial-over-usb they use the standard Atmel boot loader (SAM-BA) to bring out the UART, which requires a driver that only works on XP. Great work, guys! I thought Invensense was a Stanford start-up, where do these people get their programmers? The documentation is equally tragic - confusing, and the sensor fusion itself is mysteriously absent and is downplayed even in the introductory description.

But the chip itself is really, really nice. It requires little setup from the MCU other than uploading 'configuration data' (which I suspect to actually be a piece of code running on an internal DSP, as the .h file says something about a disassembly). Just turn it on, and it spits out quaternions. The PC application has three settings to tune the filter to rely more on the gyros or accelerometers. The highest gyro setting works really well with quick response times and no noticeable drift even after a lot of shaking and moving around. The chip also outputs linear acceleration, which is accelerometers minus gravity, which is a really nice feature to have as well.

So the hardware is nice, the software is crap. I'm thinking about hooking the imu-3000evb up to an Ardupilot and give it a whirl.

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Success with the IMU-3000?

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