Hillcrest Labs launches ‘industrial grade sensor for consumer products’

Hillcrest Labs has a new sensor system which the company says is “four times better” than competitor solutions.

Hillcrest says its new FSM300 delivers industrial-grade sensor fusion accuracy at prices suitable for consumer products with “four times greater accuracy versus competitor solutions in some tests”.

The FSM300 is what’s called a attitude and heading reference system, which is a sensor system, and an inertial measurement unit, which like a gyroscope. 

Hillcrest Labs, a subsidiary of InterDigital, says the FSM300 is a cost effective and low power AHRS/IMU module that delivers the sensor fusion accuracy of industrial-grade sensor technologies at a price point suitable for consumer applications.

With 0.5° per minute heading drift and 1.0° orientation accuracy in a very low power device, the FSM300 sets a new price/performance, according to Hillcrest.

Designed to dramatically improve human and machine motion sensing in a diverse set of consumer and IoT applications, the FSM300 combines MotionEngine, Hillcrest’s proprietary sensor processing software, with a 3-axis accelerometer, 3-axis gyroscope, and 3-axis magnetometer, along with a low-power 32-bit ARM Cortex M0+ MCU (microcontroller and multipoint control unit).

The high performance and low cost of the FSM300 means it can be used in many more price sensitive applications than alternative, higher cost AHRS/IMU solutions.

Hillcrest says it is ideal for use in a wide range of applications in the fields of robotics and autonomous vehicles, personal audio-visual systems, industrial monitoring, and wearable devices, where superior motion and activity tracking performance is required.

Improvements over standard industry solutions include:

• In robotic navigation, precise heading, with 0.5° per minute drift, and multi-axis sensor fusion enable efficient operations that save time and energy costs.
• In VR, AR and 3D audio motion tracking, latency of 2 milliseconds, orientation accuracy of 1.0°, and sampling rates up to 1KHz enable true-to-life experiences and reduce simulator sickness.
• In fitness and health activity tracking, highly accurate step counting and activity tracking ensures users have the most accurate picture of their daily activities.
• In industrial monitoring, precise detection of motion, vibration, and magnetic field anomalies enables tracking and monitoring of commercial and industrial equipment.

Innovative new product manufacturers, including Mashable Best-of-CES winner ZUtA Labs and Grey Technology, are using the FSM300 to accelerate their development and achieve superior performance, says Hillcrest.

Ophir Chernin, VP research and development, Zuta Labs, says: “Hillcrest Labs’ FSM300 delivers superior heading accuracy and maintains its calibration much better when compared to other IMUs we have worked with.

“Using this product also enabled us to complete our product design faster because we did not have a long list of quality issues to address.”

Stephen Roberts, R&D engineer, Grey Technology, says: “The ease of integration enabled by the FSM300 and the excellent support provided by Hillcrest Labs were both extremely valuable to our development team.

“The module’s motion sensing accuracy has consistently exceeded our expectations and has enabled us to focus our product development time on other areas.”

The FSM300 delivers industrial grade performance by combining consumer grade sensors and Hillcrest’s innovative MotionEngine software, thereby reducing bill-of-materials cost for new products.

The FSM300 module’s small form factor, measuring just 20mm x 25mm, is pre-calibrated and integrates hardware and software in a single package.

This enables faster time-to-market through reductions in development time and by delivering the highest quality solution for developers and integrators.

Ryan Martin, principal analyst, ABI Research, says: “Advances in motion sensing technology are the bedrock of contextual computing innovation across consumer products, Internet of Things and industrial applications.

“We expect motion sensing to be an area where we will see increased focus and attention to enable developers and integrators to remain competitive, particularly in AR/VR, 3D Audio, Robotics, Wearable, and mHealth technologies, which are poised for double-digit growth over the next five years.”

The FSM300 is available for production orders and immediate sampling along with documentation and evaluation tools.