Posted by Roy Brewer on December 4, 2009 at 9:28am
Its means to be interfaced to a PC over USB, but it appears to provide 9 DOF (accelermeters, gyros, and magnetometers). The device apparently can output the raw sensor values and/or Kalman filtered quaternionshttp://www.pnicorp.com/products/all/spacepoint-fusionToo good to be true?- Roy
Chris,
You should note this quote from PNI's website:
"The module streams raw accelerometer, gyroscope, and magnetometer data, as well as meaningful orientation information represented as quaternions, through a USB/HID interface."
So your comment "no UAV use" does not apply here ... it just means using the raw sensor values and combining them yourself in order to take centrifugal effects into account properly. Even if there is no low-level protocol (RS232 / I2C / SPI) available, boards like Brian Wolfe's PICpilot ( http://diydrones.com/profiles/blogs/built-up-three-more-picpilots ) would be able to receive raw data PNI's SpacePoint without a problem, since they incorporate a microcontroller that supports USB-host mode.
Chris,
You should note this quote from PNI's website:
"The module streams raw accelerometer, gyroscope, and magnetometer data, as well as meaningful orientation information represented as quaternions, through a USB/HID interface."
So your comment "no UAV use" does not apply here ... it just means using the raw sensor values and combining them yourself in order to take centrifugal effects into account properly. Even if there is now low-level protocol (RS232 / I2C / SPI) is available, boards like Brian Wolfe's PICpilot ( http://diydrones.com/profiles/blogs/built-up-three-more-picpilots ) would be able to receive this raw data without a problem, since they incorporate a microcontroller that supports USB-host mode.
The questions I passed on to PniCorp was transmitted to their dev team as well as a link to this post here. Maybe they'll give us some details directly here.
Yes, I'm somewhat familiar with this company. It's designed for what it says: handheld controllers. It is not optimized for inertial applications and cannot correct for centrifugal effects. So no UAV use.
Basically, it looks aweswome. Having the magnetometers could be a real plus.
However, from the information on their website and from the video, it does not look like they had UAV applications in mind. For example, I doubt they are correcting the accelerometer signals for centrifugal effects.
And, I would wonder how resistant the gyros and accelerometers are to vibration.
I would also wonder how far away you would have to keep the magnetometers from magnetic interference, such as from electric motors.
Still, it looks like it would not be too hard for them to adapt it for UAV applications. Someone should point it out to them.
In addition to its USB interface, I wish they (PNI Corp) would provide this gadget (SpacePoint™) with a serial RS232 and/or I2C and/or SPI interface so that we can use it with Arduino or any other low-end processors.
Well, according to String Theory there are at least 10 dimensions :-)
But, I agree, there aren't 9 Degrees of Freedom here. What does "DOM" stand for?
The Wii controllers don't have 3 axis magnetometers. They also don't output quaternions (although its not completely clear if the device outputs quaternions of if the PC based interface software puts out the quaternions)
Comments
You should note this quote from PNI's website:
"The module streams raw accelerometer, gyroscope, and magnetometer data, as well as meaningful orientation information represented as quaternions, through a USB/HID interface."
So your comment "no UAV use" does not apply here ... it just means using the raw sensor values and combining them yourself in order to take centrifugal effects into account properly. Even if there is no low-level protocol (RS232 / I2C / SPI) available, boards like Brian Wolfe's PICpilot ( http://diydrones.com/profiles/blogs/built-up-three-more-picpilots ) would be able to receive raw data PNI's SpacePoint without a problem, since they incorporate a microcontroller that supports USB-host mode.
Dan
You should note this quote from PNI's website:
"The module streams raw accelerometer, gyroscope, and magnetometer data, as well as meaningful orientation information represented as quaternions, through a USB/HID interface."
So your comment "no UAV use" does not apply here ... it just means using the raw sensor values and combining them yourself in order to take centrifugal effects into account properly. Even if there is now low-level protocol (RS232 / I2C / SPI) is available, boards like Brian Wolfe's PICpilot ( http://diydrones.com/profiles/blogs/built-up-three-more-picpilots ) would be able to receive this raw data without a problem, since they incorporate a microcontroller that supports USB-host mode.
Dan
See here, it says R/C as one possible use:
http://www.pnicorp.com/products/application/navigation
However, from the information on their website and from the video, it does not look like they had UAV applications in mind. For example, I doubt they are correcting the accelerometer signals for centrifugal effects.
And, I would wonder how resistant the gyros and accelerometers are to vibration.
I would also wonder how far away you would have to keep the magnetometers from magnetic interference, such as from electric motors.
Still, it looks like it would not be too hard for them to adapt it for UAV applications. Someone should point it out to them.
Bill
But, I agree, there aren't 9 Degrees of Freedom here. What does "DOM" stand for?
The Wii controllers don't have 3 axis magnetometers. They also don't output quaternions (although its not completely clear if the device outputs quaternions of if the PC based interface software puts out the quaternions)
- Roy
-
1
-
2
of 2 Next