Welcome to the installation and setup guide for the Microstrain IMU, a highly accurate Inertial Measurement Unit designed for sensor fusion implementations of odometry. The Microstrain IMU offers precise motion sensing capabilities, making it an ideal choice for robotics applications requiring reliable and accurate odometry data. In this tutorial, we will walk you through the straightforward installation process using apt get or building from source. You will also learn how to launch the Microstrain IMU driver, with the option to customize parameters such as namespace, node name, and debug logs. Whether you choose the convenient apt get installation or opt for building from source, by the end of this guide, you will have your Microstrain IMU up and running, ready to provide accurate motion measurements for your robot's sensor fusion needs. Let's get started and harness the power of the Microstrain IMU for your robotics projects!
The Microstrain IMU is an incredibly accurate Inertial Measurement Unit (IMU) to be used in a sensor fusion implementation of odometry.
Installing the drivers for the microstrain IMU are simple, and can all be installed using a simple apt get operation.
sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get install ros-ROS_DISTRO-microstrain-inertial-driver
If using the apt get function does not work for your robot application, you can build from source by following the instructions below:
git clone --recursive --branch ros2 <https://github.com/LORD-MicroStrain/microstrain_inertial.git> ~/your_workspace/src/microstrain_inertial
Install rosdeps for this package
rosdep install --from-paths ~/your_workspace/src -i -r -y
And then build your workspace
cd ~/your_workspace
colcon build
source ~/your_workspace/install/setup.bash
To launch the microstrain IMU, you can use the following launch command:
ros2 launch microstrain_inertial_driver microstrain_launch.py
You can also pass through several arguments to your launch file. Some of those include:
namespace : namespace that the driver will run in. All services and publishers will be prepended with this, default: /node_name : name of the driver, default: microstrain_inertial_driverdebug : output debug logs, default: falseparams_file : path to a parameter file to override the default parameters stored in params.yml, default: empty.ymlconfigure : If set to the exact string true the driver will automatically transition into the configure state.