If you stop to think about it, we spend a lot of our time indoors. This isn’t a big deal, unless you need to track navigation or location as part of your projects. For many, the solution for this task is GPS, but this only works well for the outdoors where you have a clear line of sight.
Tracking location may seem like a simple thing, but it has practical applications in a variety of scenarios. In fact, the predecessor to Oblu was a compact shoe-sensor that tracked the positioning of firefighters.
Today, Oblu is an Arduino compatible open-source inertial sensor that has been used in a numerous wearable motion sensor projects. Users have found ways to utilize Oblu in industrial safety, robotics navigation, AR/VR gaming, and even in the treatment of movement disorders.
This is an excellent solution for projects with tight space constraints. You can also use it as a wireless IMU, thanks to the included Bluetooth support. It also includes on-board floating point process capabilities, in addition to a four IMU array. This allows for sensor fusion and motion processing inside the module, thus providing highly accurate motion sensing data.
The processing is handled using Atmel’s AT32UC3C, while the MIMU array powers the sensor fusion and overall performance. The Xoblu companion app for Android also allows you to view the tracking data in real-time, among other handy features.
Finally, MIMUscope is a python tool for PC that allows you to analyze the motion sensing data and modify the hardware settings remotely. The flexibility of the platform proves that the current applications are just scratching the surface of what you can do with this capable tracking solution.
