Sysrox IMU AHRS; A Flying Projects Swiss Army Knife

The Sysrox High Performance IMU AHRS may have a complex name but in simpler terms it’s a Swiss Army knife of tools for projects that fly!

Onboard this small assembled PCB is a lovely collection of modern and accurate sensors. There is a 3-axis accelerometer, a 3-axis gyro, a 3-axis magnetometer and a barometric pressure sensor. These are newer than the classic sensors like the MPU6050 and BMP280, which are great, but perhaps a little superseded in 2024.

All these sensors sit on the small board terminated with 2.54mm pitch header pin pads so it can be easily hooked up to your microcontroller of choice. There are clear code examples for getting this device up and running with Arduino and ESP32. The software on board sounds very fit for purpose with Kalman filtering assuring cleaner data. It’s compatible with CANbus, Protobuf and the Mavlink protocol. This means it’s relatively painless to set up a drone or other flying project with a robust attitude heading reference system (AHRS).

It’s supplied with some pin headers and a stick-on cover which is designed to smooth out the airflow hitting the barometric pressure sensor and increase accuracy. There is a heap of documentation linked off the project page to get you up and running — or flying!