Learning more about IMUs
An IMU is a combination of sensors designed to sense a robot's movement in a 3D space. These devices are found in drones, useful in floor-based robots, and critical for balancing robots. The IMU is not a single sensor, but a collection designed to be used together and have their readings combined.
These devices are tiny but have their roots in flight hardware with large spinning gyroscopes. IMUs use the micro-electro-mechanical systems (MEMS) technology to put mechanical devices on micro-scale chips. They do have tiny moving parts and use electronic sensors to measure their movements.
Since some measurements are analog (see Chapter 2, Exploring Controllers and I/O, IMU modules often include an analog to digital converter (ADC) and communicate over I2C.
There are different combinations of sensors on an IMU. These sensors are as follows:
- A temperature sensor, to account for temperature effects on other sensors
- A gyroscope, which measures...
