Why does the gyro need the ADC?

[Joe Johnson]

In the future an ADC may not be required to get the data out of the gyro.

There are a number of SPI* based gyros and accelerometers that are coming out. Infact, they are becoming more and more common (and cheaper too).

It is possible that IFI may offer an SPI port on future RCs. If you don't want to wait, it is also possible to make a custom circuit to act as a bridge between the SPI and one of the traditional serial ports that are already on the RC.

One of the things I like a lot about these digital communication between sensors and the RC is that you don't have to worry about how well the analog curcuit for the ADC is designed. Some allow for zeroing, offsets, and scaling to be handled by writing to the control registers of the sensor. Very cool. It solves a lot of issues staying all digital.

Joe J.


*SPI = Serial Peripheral Interface -- a standard interface defined for communiciation. I2C is another standard that many sensors use.