Cost-effective miniature industrial-grade inertial sensor units

GNSS-assisted heading (yaw) measurements are accurate to ±1.0°. Among the products’ new features are a CAN bus interface and NMEA compatibility. Xsens is demonstrating the high performance of the new modules at its stand 2627 at the Xponential exhibition (Chicago, US, 30th April to 2nd May 2019).

To achieve this performance, Xsens has applied numerous innovations in its latest sensor fusion algorithms, which optimise the output from new accelerometer, gyroscope and magnetometer components. This has allowed it to bring the performance-optimised MTi 600-series to market at unit prices below €300 for production volumes of the MTi-610 IMU.

Meindert Zeeuw, Business Manager Inertial Sensor Modules at Xsens, said: “The release of the MTi 600-series promises to disrupt the industrial market for motion sensor modules in the wide space between low-cost, consumer-grade MEMS sensors and the very high-spec, expensive devices used in military/aerospace applications.

“In applications including drones, autonomous ground vehicles, robots, smart agriculture, mapping and surveying equipment, logistics and mining equipment, the new MTi 600-series modules will reset designers’ assumptions about the price to pay for industrial-grade performance. Unique Xsens sensor fusion technology and motion measurement know-how has just redefined the mid-range of the module market.”

There are four products in the MTi 600-series:

• MTi-610 IMU, which provides fully calibrated sensor data outputs.
• MTi-620 VRU, with roll and pitch measurements accurate to ±0.2°.
• MTi-630 AHRS, offering roll and pitch measurements accurate to ±0.2° and yaw measurements accurate to ±1.5°.
• MTi-670 GNSS/INS, with GNSS support offering roll and pitch measurements accurate to ±0.2°, yaw measurements accurate to ±1.0°, and global positioning data supplied by an external GNSS receiver.

The MTi 600-series modules offers:

• A choice of standard interfacing options, now including for the first time support for CAN bus alongside RS-232 and UART interfaces.
• Comprehensive, free MT Software Suite, a software development kit for easy integration into host system designs. This includes the XDA open-source application programming interface for use with any hardware development platform.
• All production units comprehensively tested and calibrated before shipment to the customer.
• Global technical support 24/7 from dedicated applications engineers.

The MTi 600-series modules are the first from Xsens to include an NMEA-compatible interface for GNSS receivers. This means that users can choose any GNSS receiver chip, module or system to work alongside the MTi-670, a GNSS/INS device which supplements the pitch, roll and yaw outputs available from other MTi 600-series products with global positioning information.

The MTi 600-series modules are available for sampling on request. Mass production is expected to begin in July 2019.