It’s been quite a while since I’ve updated you on the status of
sensor fusion efforts (Sensor Fusion). We haven’t been idle. We’ve added support for
FRDM-KL46Z boards and for Kinetis Design Studio IDE. The Sensor Fusion
Toolkit for Windows has been expanded with new and improved
features. We’ve updated our user manual and vastly upgraded the
content in the sensor fusion data sheet. But the really big news is
that we’ve taken the entire
sensor fusion library open source. It’s
FREE. We got a lot of requests for less restrictive
licensing terms and easier license checking in the code. We fixed both
by eliminating all license checks, supplying the entire library in source form
(no more node locked binaries) and switching to a very flexible BSD license
file. Source files must retain our copyright, but you are free to
use the code with any set of sensors or MCUs, at no cost what-so-ever.
This is NXP’s way of encouraging broad adoption of sensor
fusion-based techniques, regardless of who your supplier is. Which leads
me to…
This week, at the MEMS User Group Executive Congress in Scottsdale AZ,
executive director Karen Lightman, announced the MIG Accelerated Innovation
Community (AIC). The AIC is intended to facilitate sharing and adoption
of algorithms for sensor fusion and analytics, shortening time to adoption,
and (by enabling re-use) allowing its users to focus on development of next
generation functions. We seeded the effort by contributing our sensor
fusion library, documentation and source files for Windows and Android-based
visualization tools. We’ll be expanding these offerings in coming
months.
Steve Whalley, MIG chief strategy officer, added that “Analog Devices
and
NIST
have already come on board, and
PNI Sensor Corp. will contribute three algorithms: quaternion to heading pitch and roll;
heart rate monitoring using PPG sensor; and step counting. We also fully
expect other MIG member companies to add further algorithms to AIC over the
next 30 to 60 days, providing a rich baseline algorithm capability to assist
developers with sensor fusion solutions.”
There have been a few sensor algorithm libraries on the web. But they
were generally limited in ability or via license restrictions. Corporate
acquisitions of Sensor Platforms, Movea and others earlier this year have
taken a number of commercial offerings out of the general market. The
AIC makes professional level solutions available for everyone else.
Visit the
MIG Open Source Sensor Fusion site
to register and gain access to GitHub based code, documentation and
tools. In the spirit of full disclosure, my team and I authored much of
the material currently on the site, so if you have suggestions, please feel
free to send them my way.
AIC also opens the door for companies to provide professional support options,
which we plan start offering this month. The company will be
making a bundled sensor fusion development kit (FRDM-SFUSION) available for
purchase this month. The kit is offered at a suggested resale price of $170
USD and includes the FRDM-K64F, FRDM-FXS_MULTI-B boards pre-programmed
with sensor fusion software compatible with our standard Sensor Fusion Toolbox
for Windows. Also available is a premium software development support package
that includes a private portal with up to 50 hours support at a price of
$10,000 USD.
I’m really excited about taking our fusion library open source.
I’m already seeing faster adoption, and I’m looking forward to
other contributors reviewing and adding to our work products, and adding their
own. It’s a fun time to be in the sensor’s business.
