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Giving machines feeling ultimately provides what is known as dead
As sensors proliferate on industrial machines, and reckoning guidance.
the data available from them becomes richer, the A special class of inertial sensors are necessary
significance of their location and relative motion to resolve the accuracy of centimeter level
increases as well. Autonomy often relates to positioning, or one-tenth of a degree of pointing
mobility, and thus pinpointing a vehicle’s position, angles. The output of consumer-level IMUs drift
guiding a machine’s movement, and precisely very quickly even in benign environments. They are
steering their instruments are key enablers. not able to distinguish wanted motion from other
Detecting such motion with precision allows more error sources, including vibration and cross-axis
difficult and valuable application usage, where disturbances. High performance inertial sensors
safety and reliability are demanded as well. The have high stability in the range of 1°/hour, employ
smart farm, for instance, is challenged to special sensor architectures to reject linear-g errors,
continually increase efficiencies in crop and have been calibrated to compensate for
management, and locating instruments to within temperature and alignment disturbances. This
centimeters is the primary driver in conserving precision motion capture is done at 10× to 100×
inputs and maximizing outputs. higher rates, compared to GPS and perception
One approach to autonomous navigation is to sensors, and thus is best able to replace the human
leverage GNSS location services, which, while being instinctive motion sensing relied on in
ubiquitous, are also vulnerable to signal disruption. nonautonomous machines.
Full autonomy requires unrestricted operation, with The growth of this industrial revolution is
no threat of blockage or temporary disruption. dependent on the evolution of the underlying
Inertial sensors offer a complementary motion sensing technology supporting autonomy. The
measurement, free from disruption and the need for capability that radar, LIDAR, and cameras possess
external infrastructure. A combination of linear and to precisely detect and classify objects at both short
rotational sensors, on all three axes, is typically and long range will enable autonomous industrial
combined into a six degrees of freedom inertial vehicles to effectively see much like a human
measurement unit (IMU). The IMU’s outputs can be operator. In addition, inertial technology will be
resolved with additional processing to provide critical in providing gut feel or dead reckoning
relative attitude, heading, and velocity. This navigation to autonomous applications. The more
precise the sensors are, the higher quality the data
that is being fed into artificial intelligence is, and
this ultimately leads to a safer and more efficient
application.
www.analog.com/autonomy

September 2020 • INDUSTRIAL TECHNOLOGY EXTRA • p8