A global leader in high-performance semiconductors for signal processing applications, Analog Devices, Inc. (ADI), is expanding its iSensor™ intelligent sensor product family with a new six-degrees-of-freedom (6 DoF) inertial sensor. The ADIS16365 IMU (inertial measurement unit) combines simplicity, high-performance, and an improved data interface that delivers faster response times and lowers power consumption relative to other IMUs in its class. Developing high-performance platform control and navigation equipment, the ADIS16365 makes complex motion sensing design significantly easier and more cost-effective for industrial engineers. Lowering noise sensitivities that impede navigation accuracy, the new IMU boasts an approximate 10 times improvement in start-up time, reduces power consumption by at least 20 percent and improves bias stability by up to 50 percent. The ADIS16365’s low noise and fast response time, in addition to traditional industrial vehicle navigation systems, also benefit a wide range of platform stability applications, such as vehicle mounted antennas and cameras.

Anywhere high-performance motion control and feedback is required, the ADIS16365 can be used. By immediately detecting small shifts in the position of the GPS antenna due to rough terrain, the IMU enhances, in vehicles that rely on GPS satellite navigation to maintain accurate position information, such as high-end agricultural equipment, their performance. This allows for real-time signal correction and provides the highest degree of heading accuracy. Additionally, a vehicle-mounted camera or a factory automation robotic arm can rely on the ADIS16365’s fast response time and excellent stability to maintain ultra-fine resolution even under erratic conditions.

Including many sensor-to-sensor and environmental interdependencies, IMU sensor implementation involves complex electro-mechanical design. Traditional solutions are more expensive and also highly customized to a narrow class of applications. Simplifiyng the process of implementing full IMU sensor capability, the factory calibrated and programmable ADIS16365 provides affordable, precision 6 DoF sensing to the broadest range of customers and applications. Including autonomous self test, dynamic environmental compensation, digital range scaling, an automatic sensor point-of-reference realignment, and embedded sensor condition monitoring, the device includes several unique features that further reduce design time and complexity. Along with calibration for voltage variances, temperature variances, and other influences, all of which are then dynamically compensated in-use and are transparent to the user, to capture sensor data and alignment compensations across all three axes, which are then embedded within the IMU, the device leverages Analog Devices’ proprietary motion and calibration testing processes.

The ADIS16365 is backwards compatible with other iSensor 6 DoF sensors and includes a faster data access interface, additional system I/O, a higher dynamic range accelerometer (17g), and an extended temperature range of –40 degrees C to +105 degrees C.