MEMS tackles contextual awareness


PORTLAND, Ore. -- Future wearable electronic devices will automatically respond to the context of a user's actions depending on whether they are at home, work or driving, according to Invensense Inc. which unveiled its wearable Contextual Awareness System Development Kit (CA-SDK) at this week's Consumer Electronics Show.

The wearable CA-SDK looks like a watch and includes a nine-axis inertial navigation unit, the MPU-9250.Invensense (Sunnyvale, Calif.) announced at last CES an earlier version of its 9-axis IMU at last year's CES that was bundled with its on-chip MotionTracking algorithms which sense the orientation, location and motion of smartphones, tablets and other consumer electronics devices. This year it has shrunk its INU from 4x4 to 3x3 mm, plus extended its motion-tracking algorithms to sense the context in which a device is being used, creating virtual sensors that can change their function depending on activity.

The 9-axis INU is available alone or on Invensense's wrist-worn software development kit that looks like a watch and houses a 1.7- by 1.5-inch pc board containing its new MPU-9250 INU with integral motion tracking software plus its contextual awareness algorithms. It also features derivative calculations such as calorie burn rate.


Invensense's software development kit includes a pc board containing its nine-axis inertial navigation unit and MotionTracking software.