Using multiple IMUs for sensing deformation

I made this video today to quickly document some work I’ve been doing using multiple inertial measurement units (IMUs) for tracking the orientation, bending, and twisting of deformable objects. Intertial measurement units generally contain 3-axis accelerometers, gyroscopes, and magnetometers – the data can be cleverly combined to obtain an estimate of orientation (as long as the IMU is being used in an environment with constant gravity and magnetic field, and not in free-fall).

This particular object has two Mongoose IMUs embedded inside it, running some custom firmware I wrote for complementary filtering/sensor fusion for estimation of orientation.