SPI + IMU = Magic?
I know that sounds like nothing to the layman but for an ECE major you should know these acronyms, SPI stands for Serial Peripheral Interface, which is in the same boat as UART and I^2C, they are communication protocols, and are vital for use of digital sensors.
IMU stands for Inertial Measurement Unit, which are very useful for finding relative location, (i.e. where you were vs where you are now). It uses 9 axis of measurement, 3 from each of an accelerometer, gyroscope, and a magnetometer. Using these 2 technologies together we can collect data from the microcontroller and send it to your main computer to be read.
In this context, the output is in the form of a scalar and a vector, where r is the magnitude of the vector and i j k represent the 3 axis direction.
For more reading on SPI and other Communication protocols
SPI
For more reading on IMU
