wiki:accelerometer

Version 13 (modified by Tim Harvey, 8 days ago) ( diff )

removed old linux input driver details and direct I2C bus access details; Linux IIO drivers should be used on all modern kernels

Accelerometer and Magnetometer

Many Gateworks board families come standard with either an Accelerometer, Magnetometer, or other inertial measurement unit (IMU) options.

Supported Devices

The specific devices used on our boards are described by the following table:

Family Board Device Location
Venice GW82xx LIS2DE12 accelerometer i2c2@0x19
LIS2MDL magnetometer i2c2@0x1e (loading option)
GW71xx LIS2DE12 accelerometer i2c2@0x19
LIS2MDL magnetometer i2c2@0x1e (loading option)
GW72xx LIS2DE12 accelerometer i2c2@0x19
LIS2MDL magnetometer i2c2@0x1e (loading option)
GW73xx LIS2DE12 accelerometer i2c2@0x19
LIS2MDL magnetometer i2c2@0x1e (loading option)
GW74xx LIS2DE12 accelerometer i2c2@0x19
Newport GW64xx-C+ LIS2DE12 accelerometer i2c0@0x19
GW63xx-E+ LIS2DE12 accelerometer i2c0@0x19
GW62xx-B+ LIS2DE12 accelerometer i2c0@0x19
Ventana GW553x LSM9DS1 IMU i2c2@0x1c (mag) i2c2@0x6a (accel/gyro)
GW54xx FXOS8700 accelerometer i2c3@0x1e
GW53xx FXOS8700 accelerometer i2c3@0x1e
GW522x FXOS8700 accelerometer i2c3@0x1e
GW520x FXOS8700 accelerometer i2c3@0x1e

Individual device information:

Device Datasheet Notes
LIS2DE12 link 3 axis accelerometer
LSM9DS1 link 9 axis internal mass unit (IMU) (accel/mag/gyro)
FXOS8700 link 6 axis accelerometer, defaults to low power standby mode and must be enabled

See examples below for more information.

Software Support

The API used to access these devices varies depending on the device and sometimes the kernel version.

Device Kernel API Kernel Driver
LIS2DE12 accelerometer iio IIO_ST_ACCEL_I2C_3AXIS
LIS2MDL magnetometer iio IIO_ST_MAGN_I2C_3AXIS
LSM9DS1 imu iio IIO_ST_MAGN_I2C_3AXIS (mag) IIO_ST_LSM6DSX_I2C (accel/gyro)
FXOS8700 accelerometer iio FXOS8700_I2C

Linux industrial I/O bus

The modern approach to IMU devices is to use the Linux IIO subsystem. IIO aims to fill the gap between the somewhat similar hwmon and input subsystems. While the hwmon API is directed at low sample rate sensors (like fan speed control or temperature measurement) the input API is focused on human interaction input devices (keyboard, mouse, touchscreen). In some cases there is considerable overlap between these and the iio API.

Userspace applications can interact with an IIO driver via either:

  1. /sys/bus/iio/devices/iio:deviceX/ - represents a hardware sensor and groups

together the data channels. Common attributes are name, dev, sampling_frequency_available, and standard attributes. See sysfs-bus-iio for details.

  • Example (GW54xx with FXOS8700)
    # cat /sys/bus/iio/devices/iio\:device0/sampling_frequency_available
    1.5625 6.25 12.5 50 100 200 400 800
    # echo 100 > /sys/bus/iio/devices/iio\:device0/sampling_frequency
    # for i in `seq 1 10`; do cat /sys/bus/iio/devices/iio\:device0/in_accel_x_raw ; done
    70
    70
    70
    70
    90
    90
    90
    90
    90
    90
    
  1. /dev/iio:deviceX - character device node interface used for buffered data transfer and for event information retrieval
  1. libiio - library for interfacing with Linux IIO devices (Ubuntu: libiio-utils iiod, OpenWrt: iio-utils iiod):
    • Example (GW54xx with FXOS8700)
      # iio_info 
      Library version: 0.18 (git tag: v0.18)
      Compiled with backends: local
      IIO context created with local backend.
      Backend version: 0.18 (git tag: v0.18)
      Backend description string: Linux OpenWrt 4.19.106 #0 SMP Tue Feb 25 22:49:24 2020 armv7l
      IIO context has 1 attributes:
          local,kernel: 4.19.106
      IIO context has 1 devices:
          iio:device0: fxos8700
              6 channels found:
                      accel_y:  (input)
                      5 channel-specific attributes found:
                              attr  0: raw value: -256
                              attr  1: sampling_frequency ERROR: Invalid argument (-22)
                              attr  2: sampling_frequency_available value: 1.5625 6.25 12.5 50 100 200 400 800
                              attr  3: scale value: 0.000244
                              attr  4: scale_available value: 0.000244 0.000488 0.000976
                      magn_z:  (input)
                      5 channel-specific attributes found:
                              attr  0: raw value: 0
                              attr  1: sampling_frequency ERROR: Invalid argument (-22)
                              attr  2: sampling_frequency_available value: 1.5625 6.25 12.5 50 100 200 400 800
                              attr  3: scale value: 0.000244
                              attr  4: scale_available value: 0.000001200
                      accel_z:  (input)
                      5 channel-specific attributes found:
                              attr  0: raw value: 0
                              attr  1: sampling_frequency ERROR: Invalid argument (-22)
                              attr  2: sampling_frequency_available value: 1.5625 6.25 12.5 50 100 200 400 800
                              attr  3: scale value: 0.000244
                              attr  4: scale_available value: 0.000244 0.000488 0.000976
                      magn_x:  (input)
                      5 channel-specific attributes found:
                              attr  0: raw value: -1660
                              attr  1: sampling_frequency ERROR: Invalid argument (-22)
                              attr  2: sampling_frequency_available value: 1.5625 6.25 12.5 50 100 200 400 800
                              attr  3: scale value: 0.000244
                              attr  4: scale_available value: 0.000001200
                      accel_x:  (input)
                      5 channel-specific attributes found:
                              attr  0: raw value: 82
                              attr  1: sampling_frequency ERROR: Invalid argument (-22)
                              attr  2: sampling_frequency_available value: 1.5625 6.25 12.5 50 100 200 400 800
                              attr  3: scale value: 0.000244
                              attr  4: scale_available value: 0.000244 0.000488 0.000976
                      magn_y:  (input)
                      5 channel-specific attributes found:
                              attr  0: raw value: 12800
                              attr  1: sampling_frequency ERROR: Invalid argument (-22)
                              attr  2: sampling_frequency_available value: 1.5625 6.25 12.5 50 100 200 400 800
                              attr  3: scale value: 0.000244
                              attr  4: scale_available value: 0.000001200
              1 device-specific attributes found:
                              attr  0: current_timestamp_clock value: realtime
      
      

References:

Android support via the Android sensor HAL

The Android BSP will register an accelerometer and a magnetometer sensor with the OS and therefore can be used with apps conforming the the Android sensor API.

References:

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