One thing that we’ve seen a fair bit of on the internet is how simple an EFIS can be to create. You just need an IMU, a common motion processing filter (Madgwick or Mahoney for example) and you’re off!

I’m not going to lie, I thought similarly. It took all of 2 weeks to code up a quick demo with the Bosch BNO055 IMU and on my desk it looked like a million bucks! One flight in the airplane and it was obvious that there was more to the puzzle.

Almost a year later and we’re still working through the details of what it takes to make a solid state IMU based attitude indicator. If you checkout other DIY Avionics places on the internet, none of them have real flight tests!

The biggest challenge for us so far has been the coordinated turn. This is the case where the gravity vector doesn’t play ball with the gyro integrators. We’ve made some great headway in the last couple weeks and are getting close to where we want to be. One thing that is for sure, is our hardware platform is looking fantastic!!! Stay tuned!