True North Technologies Introduces “on-board” Calibration to Revolution™ GS Electronic Compass

(Maynard, MA), May 11, 2007 – True North Technologies has announced the introduction of onboard hard-iron calibration to the Revolution™ GS, a strap-down electronic compass designed specifically for commercial, industrial, and military users. Embedded in the firmware of the Revolution GS are routines to collect and analyze magnetic calibration data. A least-squares algorithm is implemented to compute hard-iron offsets that optimize accuracy. There are a number of options that can be preset using the PC Revolution software including:

  • Sample data geometry options
  • Sample data collection options
  • Progress notification options
  • Completion options

“Adding on-board calibration to the Revolution GS is an important step forward for our electronic compass product line,” said David E. Pheifer, President of True North Technologies. He added, “this implementation provides two important features: flexibility in the data collection algorithm and accuracy in the calculation of compensation coefficients. The new CAL sentence is unique. It provides both a progress indicator during data capture and calculation results with statistics to indicate expected improvement in accuracy. No other electronic compass offers the ease-of-use, visibility, and overall performance of this new calibration feature.”

True North Technologies develops and manufactures products for marine, air, and land-based applications with a concentration in electronic compassing. True North is also a Microchip® Consultant specializing in designs utilizing Microchip Technologies’ PIC 16/17/18 micro-controllers. The company was founded in 1993 and is located in historic Clock Tower Place in Maynard, MA, the original home of Digital Equipment Corporation.