Mobile World Congress: Enabling Systems with Sensor Fusion, DSPs

BARCELONA, Spain—We hear a lot about sensor fusion and the applications that it can enable. But conquering the technical hurdles while keeping your project on budget is non-trivial.

“What you’re going to see is that with a solid sensor fusion output, people are going to be building newer and better applications, like incorporating pedestrian dead reckoning with satellite GNSS information to get better tracking,” said Kurt Weber, Director of Sales for Hillcrest Labs. Fifteen-year-old Hillcrest Labs is known for its Freespace technology, which transforms raw sensor data into advanced motion information.

Weber spent part of his time at Mobile World Congress 2015 demonstrating a sensor fusion solution using Cadence Tensilica DSP technology. Sensor fusion is particularly important in some environments where mobile devices might not have access to certain wireless signals but location granularity is necessary—for example a mall or an urban canyon, Weber said.

The collaboration between Hillcrest Labs and Cadence Tensilica is designed to optimize battery power consumption, speed system integration, and enable flexible system architecture choices.

Listen as Weber demonstrates the technology and describes the opportunity and engineering challenges surrounding sensor fusion:

Brian Fuller

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