iSensor Eval GUI User Guide

This guide assumes that you've connected your IMU to the EVAL-ADIS-FX3 and that the Eval GUI software was able to verify communication with your IMU successfully. We recommend checking out the Setup and Troubleshooting guide before continuing with the Eval GUI user guide.

Eval GUI Main Window

The Eval GUI Main Window brings together many functions, utilities, and subroutines useful when working with the EVAL-ADIS-FX3 and ADI inertial sensors. The image below summarizes the buttons, menus, and tabs available on the main window.

Reboot FX3 - This button commands the EVAL-ADIS-FX3 to reboot, forcing USB re-enumeration and powering off the sensor supply (if powered through USB).
FX3 Board Info - This button displays information describing the EVAL-ADIS-FX3 hardware and firmware and the active FX3Api version, build date and commit information.
Select DUT Type - This button calls the DUT Type Selection window, allowing you to quickly change the active device type configuration. Click here for more information.
Manual DUT Config - This button calls the Manual DUT Configuration window. This window allows you to customize the communication protocol settings, sensor supply, active register map, GUI color scheme, and many other features. Click here for a detailed guide on using this window.
Reset DUT - This button will force the RESET pin to pulse for ~10ms, causing the sensor to reboot.
Check DUT Connection - This button will execute a series of SPI transactions that attempt to validate the sensor's SPI configuration settings and connections.
FX3/DUT Status - This section displays the FX3 status, sensor status, sensor supply status, and the active device type.
Evaluation GUI Functions - These tabs group the EVAL-ADIS-FX3's capabilities into different sections. Many of these capabilities are described in detail below.
Evaluation GUI Main Window - This section of the GUI will update as different tabs are selected.
Evaluation GUI Metadata - This section displays the Evaluation GUI version and active register map.
Evaluation GUI Update and Issue Reporting - Clicking on “Check for Updates” will query the official GitHub repository to look for a newer version of the Eval GUI. Clicking on “Report Issue” will navigate to the GitHub issue tracking page.

Reading and Writing to IMU Registers

The FX3 Evaluation GUI provides several ways to read and write the IMU’s onboard registers. The “Register Access” tab offers a quick way to modify IMU registers, allowing for manual configuration of the IMU without the need to develop any extra software. Hex-to-decimal conversion can be toggled by checking the “Scale Data” checkbox in the screen's upper-right corner. The “Continuous Read” checkbox will toggle an automatic, periodic read of all the registers listed on the current page.

Individual registers can be read by clicking on the corresponding register’s cell in the table. The entire page may also be read by clicking the “Read Page” button in the screen's upper-right corner.

The Eval GUI will automatically append an extra 16-bit SPI transaction (reading 32 bits from the sensor in total) when reading any *_LOW registers (this includes gyroscope, accelerometer, delta angle/velocity, and offset registers where applicable). The Eval GUI performs the 16-bit SPI transactions, transmits the data to the PC, and combines the two 16-bit numbers into a single 32-bit number. A single SPI transaction will look like the capture shown below.

The active register page can be changed by clicking the drop-down shown below and selecting a new page. Only valid pages for that particular sensor will be shown. Sensors that do not have register page capabilities will only show registers on page zero.

Registers can be written in either hexadecimal or decimal format by selecting the target register, typing the new value in the “New Value” text box, and clicking on “Write.” Write-only registers will display a “Write Only” message in the status box above the “New Value” text box. Read-only registers will not display any message unless attempting to be written to.

The “Register Access” tab can also measure the data ready output rate dynamically by clicking on the “Measure Data Ready” checkbox. It's possible for this feature not to detect the data ready signal if a non-default data ready setting is configured.

Streaming/Logging Sensor Data to a File

The “Data Logging” tab provides the tools necessary for reliably streaming sensor data to the host PC. Data is saved to disk in .csv format.

Register Logging

The register logging form allows you to capture a custom list of registers from the target IMU. Registers can be added in any order, irrespective of page. The register list can also be saved to a file to easily recall an elaborate list of registers on different systems.

Setting the “DR Active” check box configures the EVAL-ADIS-FX3 to wait for a data ready signal before initiating a SPI transfer. Data captures may be performed without data ready synchronization, but this configuration is not recommended since invalid data may be read from the IMU. The images below show the differences between data captures performed with and without “DR Active” enabled.

The IMU data rate (data ready) can be read from this form to verify that the sensor configuration is valid before kicking off a data stream.

Setting the “Validate DR Period” checkbox will notify the Eval GUI to measure the sensor output data rate and verify that the registers' requested list does not exceed the IMU data valid period. The SPI SCLK, SPI stall, number of registers, and protocol overhead are all taken into account in the calculation. The image below shows a SPI transaction that exceeds the data ready period.

The three text boxes near the bottom of the window configure the data write behavior for the stream.

# Samples To Capture sets the total number of samples to capture. For example, if the sensor data rate were set to 2,000 samples per second (SPS), and you wanted to capture 1 hour of data, the number of samples to capture would be 2,000 * 3,600 = 7,200,000.
# Samples Per Write sets the number of samples to buffer between writes to the disk. This is particularly useful on slower machines or very long-term tests. For example, if the sensor data rate was set to 20SPS and you wanted to capture data for 30 days but only write to the disk once per hour, the samples per write setting would be 20 * 3,600 = 72,000 and the samples to capture setting would be 20(SPS) * 3,600(seconds per hour) * 24(hours per day) * 30(days) = 51,840,000.
# Lines Per File sets the number of rows to write per file. The default 1,000,000 is a good compromise between file growth and usability and was chosen to work around an issue with Microsoft Excel, where the software will struggle when opening files with more than one million rows.

Once the sensor is configured and ready, click “Start Capture” to begin the data capture.

The data capture can be canceled if necessary. Any data that is pending a write to the disk will be written.

Wiki

Analog Devices Wiki

Table of Contents

iSensor Eval GUI User Guide

Eval GUI Main Window

Reading and Writing to IMU Registers

Streaming/Logging Sensor Data to a File

Register Logging

Analog Devices Wiki

Table of Contents

iSensor Eval GUI User Guide

Eval GUI Main Window

Reading and Writing to IMU Registers

Streaming/Logging Sensor Data to a File

Register Logging

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