IMU Selection

Breakout Board

1. MPU6050

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

• The production of this chip stopped unfortunately so we can’t keep buying this chip anymore, ICM 20602 is the new replacement to the MPU 6000(also out of date)

• 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:MPU6050 6-DoF Accelerometer and Gyro

• Outweigh the performance of other chips:

Gyro shootout: MPU6000 vs ICM20602 vs BMI270 and OSR4 mode for BMI Gyros!

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:Adafruit BNO055 Absolute Orientation Sensor

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: SparkFun 9DoF Sensor Stick

6. ICM 42688-P

• Really affordable 6-axis IMU chip

• There was this gossip about this IMU spoken from

Gyro Questions? Is the ICM42688 any good? - FPV Questions

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

• Getting Started with LSM6DSOX

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

• STM: https://estore.st.com/en/steval-mki197v1-cpn.html

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 20602, and BMI270 are all good traditional chips