IMU Selection

Breakout Board

1. MPU6050

• The most well-known 6-axis IMU that you see a lot of its breakout in the market

• It has the same hardware named MPU6000 with additional SPI

• Reviews of this breakout board’s accuracy are generally negative, but the performance of the chip is recognized by many UAV use

• Sounds like the breakout board has an uneven quality

• Adafruit has pretty detailed how-to-use instruction:https://learn.adafruit.com/mpu6050-6-dof-accelerometer-and-gyro?view=all

• Outweigh the performance of other chips:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UWiysMidBHM

2. BNO055 breakout

• 50$breakout, 9-axis IMU

• Has an ARM processor on board that does some of the math for you, and the data can be fetched pretty handy

• Has convenient absolute orientation output(100hz), and other raw data as well

• Has the concern that the internal firmware hasn’t been updated for years, so the data process isn’t good

• Adafruit:https://learn.adafruit.com/adafruit-bno055-absolute-orientation-sensor?view=all

3. BMI270

• 20$ breakout, 6-axis IMU

• Commonly used in flight controllers, wearable, smart clothing, and AR/VR applications

• The chip requires extra filtering due to its much higher low-pass filter

• Sparkfun breakout:https://www.sparkfun.com/products/17353

4. ISM330DHCX, MMC5983MA

• 40$ for breakout, 9-axis IMU with relatively new chips on it

• Has a machine learning core, but I am not sure doesn’t sound like it has been programmed

• Directional accuracy: 0.5 degrees compass applications

• Sparkfun breakout:https://www.sparkfun.com/products/19895

5. LSM9DS1

• 35$ for breakout, 9-axis IMU all-in-one-chip

• This is from STM, so hopefully it has the better STM compatibility

• Adafruit: https://learn.adafruit.com/adafruit-lsm9ds1-accelerometer-plus-gyro-plus-magnetometer-9-dof-breakout?view=all

• Sparkfun: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q0v3TTL_r3I

6. ICM 42688-P

• Really affordable 6-axis IMU chip

• There was this gossip about this IMU spoken from

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NrcD6ILCZyc

TLDR, he is saying ICM42688 is good but needs to be treated carefully on its electronic design to make sure it doesn’t become unusable like it was in some older flight controller

7. ICM 20948

• Similar performance to MPU6000

8. LSM6DOSX

• The latest in a long line of quality Accelerometer+Gyroscope 6-DOF IMUs from ST

• Has well well-documented datasheet

• Also has a machine-learning core

• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DqdA3pInk5E&t=615s

• Adafruit:https://learn.adafruit.com/lsm6dsox-and-ism330dhc-6-dof-imu?view=all

Summary

• LSM6DOSX is my favourite 6-axis IMU chip of all chips so far. Newer technology is implemented on this chip, and it is well-documented, the performance sounds promising

• BNO055 breakout board is the most easy to use breakout board since it has on-board data processing. Make this board stand out in the non-Arduino/Raspberry Pi development scenario.

• MPU6000, ICM 20948, and BMI270 are all good traditional chips