Designed as a one-stop solution for mobile consumer electronics devices, the BMI055 six-degrees-of-freedom (6DoF) inertial measurement unit (IMU) lays claim to being the smallest device of its type available today. And, in relatively small quantities, the device is priced under $3.
The device consists of two triaxial MEMS sensors — an accelerometer and a gyroscope — and supporting electronics, all in a single 3.0 x 4.5 x 0.95-mm LGA package. Accompanying custom software combines measurement data from both sensors to provide optimized data sets for target applications. Since the software can actually support 9DoF, the accelerometer/gyro can be optionally used with an external geomagnetic sensor,
The measurement range of the sensors is programmable: from ±125°/s to ±2,000°/s for the gyro and from ±2 g to ±16 g for the accelerometer; the latter’s typical zero-g offset is 70 mg. Resolutions are 16 bits (gyro) and 12 bits (accelerometer).
Both sensors consume very little power. Operating at full-speed data rates, the gyro draws 5 mA and the accelerometer just 200 μA, making the latter useful for the fast wake-up mode (10 ms) of the former.
The sensors provide a great deal of built-in functionality and flexibility. The accelerometer’s FIFO buffer can store up to 32 samples of x/y/z data, while the gyro’s FIFO holds up to 100 samples. Both the accelerometer’s seven interrupt modes (motion, tap, screen orientation, flat, low/high-g, no motion, new data) and the gyro’s three modes (motion, high rate, new data) can be mapped independently to the interrupt pins.
I2 C and SPI digital interfaces are supported to simplify system integration. (Less than $3 ea /10,000 — samples available now; prod qty, 3rd qtr.)
By Richard Comerford
Bosch Sensortec , Reutlingen , Germany
Information +49 7121 3535900
www.bosch-sensortec.com
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