Scam - but how do they make money ?

This sounds like the standard 6-state or 9-state Kalman Filter. They do work in big vector spaces.

External references are also provided to this Kalman Filter.

The information to cancel drift is not in the IMU data, so software can do nothing to cancel drift from IMU data alone.

I would think that a direct test would end the game, so I don't see how even a lunatic investor could be fooled for long.

Micron Dynamics claims that the technology is patented, so I sent an email asking for patent numbers.

Joe Gwinn

Same company name, but in Hong Kong: Wearable wireless HMI device

2017-12-11 Application filed by Micron Digital Corp (hk) Limited) You're looking for a company in Canada, not Hong Kong.

I couldn't find any other patents under "Micron Digital".

This might be the company president:

--
Jeff Liebermann     jeffl@cruzio.com 
150 Felker St #D    http://www.LearnByDestroying.com 
Santa Cruz CA 95060 http://802.11junk.com 
Skype: JeffLiebermann     AE6KS    831-336-2558

I don't see what's intrinsically bullshit or about claims of an inertial measurement breakthrough vs. claims of real woo like cold fusion or machines that run on their own power.

This doesn't seem quite in that same vein, and I doubt there's anyone here with the qualifications to make credible commentary as to what's actually possible or isn't with whatever machine-learning technique they say they're applying. If they do have patents that's some amount of credibility, I don't know whether I'd trust my own evaluation of the claims any more than the patent office, they're not all just rubber-stampers who let any old thing fly.

Either they'll deliver, or they won't, most things in life tend to be one thing or the other. But it seems like more of a gamble than an outright "scam" that breaks the laws of physics without further information. it's the kind of gamble VC people do day in and day out and win or lose on, depending.

If they can't or won't provide references to the patents they claim to have that would surely make me more skeptical

I haven't seen their own documentation, but I know it's good to be skeptical if anyone uses terms like "breakthrough" or "revolutionary" or such superlatives in their own material.

People who make real "breakthroughs" don't need to hang a lampshade on it, anyone in the field will be able to recognize it for what it is. It's like being the sexiest blonde bombshell in the nightclub, she doesn't need to put a sign on herself that says "Sexiest blonde in nightclub" the target audience will figure it out.

Their technical documents, to be clear, marketing departments do as they do.

It should be Micron Digital, not Dynamics.

Their email is . No reply just yet.

Rohit Seth. Who is in Canada, not HK. And his company is in a suburb of Toronto. It's sounding good so far. Thanks. Time for more digging.

Joe Gwinn

There are (at least) a couple of reasons to be sceptical:

First the term "static variance offset" is not standard IMU talk - if you Google it you'll find one specific hit - under ROMOS !

Secondly, lets take that at face value - they seem to be saying that the position error over the device lifetime will be 0.5mm. From school physics you know that s = (a.t^2)/2 (s is distance a is acceleration. Lets assume a life of 5 years = 1.576E8 seconds re-arranging we get a = 2s/(t^2) = 1e-3/(2.48E16) = 4e-20 m/s/s This level of acceleration bias is not just unlikely but impossible. Current good parts offer figures like 3ug = 3E-5 m/s/s bias instability. If Micron Dynamics really had a 15 order of magnitude breakthrough they would be marketing in a slightly different way.

MK

I see on their site the marketing blurb says "Unlike conventional Inertial Measurement Units (IMUs), additional external reference signal(s) are not required to compensate for drift error."

"Once initialized, ROMOS will experience a maximum of 0.5mm static variance offset from true position data over its operational lifetime."

I'm not entirely sure what the phrase "static variance offset" means in an IMU-context but I'm guessing it may not mean the same as "lifetime absolute position error."

I think it's good to be skeptical but there's the possibility that the "scam" such as it is, is the usual marketing trick, you say the words in the top paragraph about no required external references one place, and the 0.5mm figure the other, and assumption is made that what they're saying is that with no external references at all you can have performance 15 orders of magnitude better than other state of the art.

But note it says the additional reference signals are not _required_, which isn't the same as saying it could never use them.

Sure, I think the possibility is there they're not lying, exactly, but they're just not telling the whole truth and perhaps letting people derive assumptions about what they're saying that they never quite said. Like with a lot of semiconductor products you have to dive 15 pages into the datasheet to figure out the whole truth.

So far, no response.

Yeah, but many organizations develop their own private jargon, so that tells us little.

Yeah. As was pointed out upthread, a half millimeter max drift in even a month would be really useful for boat and airplane navigation, far better than any inertial sensor currenly available, and only $5 per unit.

Nor can fancy software overcome sensor noise, especially the random-walk kind, which cannot be improved by averaging.

Joe Gwinn

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For the record, here is the text of my email to Micron Digital:

Hello.

I recently came across your website and am perplexed.

The sensor appears to be a standard MEMS IMU with a 6-state or 9-state Kalman filter (each state can be considered to be a dimension in a 6 or 9 dimensional vector space) that nonetheless doesn't drift at all. The key question is how this is accomplished without any external reference.

The website mentions that the technology is patented. Which patent numbers should I consult?

Thanks, ....

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Red flags:

1. Their website contains absolutely no technical specifications or details .

1. Their name, Micron Digital, is obviously chosen so that you might think they are Micro Technology.

There is no such thing as a "zero drift" IMU. This implies a noiseless syst em. It falls into the category of perpetual motion machines.