Sensors BoosterPack

The Sensors BoosterPack is an update of the Sensor Hub BoosterPack with the same large list of sensors around two applications: a weather station and an inertial measurement unit (IMU).

The weather station uses the following sensors:

Texas Instruments TMP007 infrared object temperature sensor (instead of the TMP006),
Texas Instruments OPT3001 Digital Ambient Light Sensor with High Precision Human Eye Response (instead of the Intersil ISL29023),
Bosch BME280 which combines thermometer, barometer and hydrometer (instead of the previous Bosch BMP180 and Sensirion SHT21).

The inertial measurement unit relies on two Bosch sensors (instead of the InvenSense MPU9150 IMU):

Bosch BMI160 which combines a 3-axis accelerometer and a 3-axis gyroscope,
Bosch BMM150 3-axis magnetometer.

Data fusion and Euler angles calculation are no longer carried out by the sensors, but by the MCU of the LaunchPad. This allows to obtain a 10 DoF IMU, or ten degrees of freedom inertial measurement unit with the altitude provided by the barometer.

Left, the Sensor Hub BoosterPack and right, the Sensors BoosterPack

Hardware

All the sensors are connected to the same I²C bus, requiring only 2 pins. Optionally, interrupts go through 5 GPIOs.

The BMM150 isn't connected to the main I²C bus, but to a secondary I²C bus managed by the BMI160. This allows the BMI160 to ensure an exact synchronisation when acquiring the 9 measures. Unfortunately, the documentation provided by Bosch is partial, and lacks both clarity and precision.

As a consequence, Energia libraries are only available for the weather sensors, including TMP007, OPT3001 and BME280. The library is available at the GitHub repository Weather Sensors Library.

Pins Map

The BoosterPack requires 2 pins for the I²C bus and 5 GPIOs for the optional interrupts.

Conclusion

The Sensors BoosterPack is a nice update of the previous Sensor Hub BoosterPack. It provides an amazing range of sensors, very close to those featured on the SensorTag, and fits easily on the CC3200 LaunchPad for IoT applications.

However, the documentation from Bosch lacks both clarity and precision. and the libraries for the IMU sensors aren't available yet for Energia.

One year after, there is still no Energia-compatible library for the IMU sensors. I'd recommend using the BNO055 instead, which includes its own MCU to fusion data and calculate Euler angles quaternion, linear acceleration vector.

Pros

7 sensors in one single BoosterPack though I²C port

Cons

Poor documentation for Bosch sensors
No Energia library for the IMU sensors

Wrap-Up

Perfect for a weather station
Fits in any IoT LaunchPad
No Energia-compatible library for IMU sensors

Links

Posted: Sept 10, 2016
Edited: Sept 12, 2017