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WhatsNew:
CHIMU Product Manual News
Dec 27, 2011
Please note! A new release (Rev F) of the CHIMU manual is available, correcting a problem with the secondary connector pinout.
CurrentNews:
CHIMU-J Available for Purchase
December 2011
The CHIMU-J units are available and in stock. Please see the product page for more information and the latest manual!
RecentEvents:
Monkey Software
Dec 25, 2011
The latest public release of Monkey software is now available by request from customers. The User Guide is an updated reference to the software and links can be found on the Monkey product page.
Next Generation Monkey!
Hello,
First, thank you to all our customers. The breadth of projects out there that use our products is wider than we had thought, and it has rewarding to help out.
Some of you have written regarding the status on the Monkey platform. The Monkey ordering page indicates out of stock.. It is true, our last build was bought out by a single customer unexpectedly. Here was half of the order before shipping:
So while we were very happy with the order, it left us with no stock.
It was time for a new update to the Monkey platform however. So we are taking advantage of this to get the next generation Monkey out the door!
We'll follow up with more description, but the highlights of the new design include:
- GPS autodetect antenna capability (no more special ordering for external antenna)
- On board switching regulator allowing 4 to 36 V input voltage
- Three different inertial sensor capabilities!
- CHIMU interface
- Independent rate, accel and mag sensors on board
- The new MPU-9150 chip from Invensense
- New dedicated solid state data flash memory
- New dedicated I2C configuration memory
User's old code will work with the new Monkey (as long as it has been confined to UserMode.c).
We'll follow up with more details, but for now, we expect to be back in supply in late March.
Thanks again for your interest!
Pre-release of Monkey Software Reference Manual
The release of the latest public Monkey base code will be August 1, 2011. Some of the highlights include:
- Access to inertial navigation capability (beta!)
- Enhanced logging and system settings
- Enhanced CHIMU interface
- Better documentation of functions
Prior to the release, we have updated the documentation within the code, and put the software reference manual online:
Link to pre-release Monkey Software Reference Manual
Public Monkey updates coming ...
We haven't posted in awhile, but wanted to let you know of an update to the stock Monkey code that should be coming out in the next month. We were waiting for the official release of Rowley Crossworks 2.1, a fairly major upgrade which just came out. Monkey code uses Rowley as the IDE and compiler base, which in turn is based on GCC.
We are going to wait a little bit for some of the inevitable small bug corrections to that core, and then will be releasing an update to the public Monkey code. Some of the included upgrades will be:
- Autodetect of CHIMU or CHIMU J modules
- Options for Monkey/CHIMU telemetry turn off
- Enhanced SD card logging
- Access to CHIMU advanced functions (centripetal, heading substitution, calibrations)
- Reconfigure of control and navigation functions into libraries
- Possible addition (depending on release status) of access to GPS/INS library previously reserved for advanced customers
Navigation Board M3 BACK IN STOCK
Nav Board M3's are back in stock. Please go here to order:
Nav Board M3 Product Page
Paparazzi and CHIMU integration
Christophe De Wagter at the Delft University of Technology in the Netherlands has been working on integrating a CHIMU into a Paparazzi autopilot. He has implemented both the UART and SPI interfaces and a video of the system working can be seen here:
Here is another video showing stabilization of a little antenna using the SPI output (200 Hz rate). This was a difficult integration as the Paparazzi code wasn't setup to handle being a slave SPI device.
Christophe has done a great job (overcoming many integration difficulties) and its great to know the CHIMU can interact with the Paparazzi code. Thanks Christophe!
Navigation Board M3 temporarily out of stock
Sorry everyone, we are temporarily out of stock for our Nav Board M3. We expect more units by April 27 however, and will update the status before then.
You can still purchase the units, they will ship when they become available.
Comparison to ADI 16362
The ADI 16362 cube is precision calibrated by Analog Devices. It is a very good device. We had access to a unit, and did some noise comparisons with the CHIMU J. As you can see, the CHIMU J is beating that unit, which is listed at $625 per single unit (plus a $250 USB interface board if you need it).
This compares to the anticipated $260 CHIMU J cost (though we are still evaluating that, it might go down)...
CHIMU J Performance Quicklook
The new CHIMU-J AHRS is being run thru final paces and stress tests. An updated user manual will be out soon describing the new features, and the unit will be available for purchase after April 14.
Currently, the performance is a ten-fold increase above the original CHIMU in terms of noise and general performance due to upgraded sensors and core processor, which opens the door to better performance on existing GPS/INS applications using the unit, especially for periods of GPS denied tracking.
CHIMU-J board product release update
The CHIMU-J (Josephine) boards have arrived in house. We are still working on porting and testing the proven CHIMU code to the new processor and optimizing the output and data interface.
The new CHIMU-J's have a secondary connector that will allow more customers to use it in non-Monkey applications. This connector has power, UART, and SPI bus lines available.
Check back in for updates as they become available!
Our New Website
Our old website was thrown together years ago, and was pretty much like a house of cards. Since then, we've seen much of our new business contacts come from web searches in areas like inertial sensing, UAV's, and other related areas. So we decided it was time to upgrade the site a little and try to modernize it a little.
That said, we may have some bugs showing up, so bear with us in the short term.
Two main features we are pretty excited about is this (the blog you are reading) and our newsletter signup. We are trying to keep our customers and other interested parties up to date with what we have going on. The newsletter will be a large part of that, as we will rely on it to alert you to changes in released software, new products, or new information that you may find important regarding your existing projects using our products.
The newsletter has an RSS feed as well, so it can be integrated into your mail program for even easier updates.
We'll post more about this feature as we proceed. Thanks for stopping by and just yell if you have any questions!
