EMCORE SDI500/505 IMU Ranked First in U.S. Military-Commissioned Inertial Measurement Unit Trade Study

ALHAMBRA, CA, April 07, 2021 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- EMCORE Corporation (Nasdaq: EMKR), a leading provider of advanced mixed-signal products that serve the aerospace & defense and broadband communications markets, announced today that its SDI500/505 Inertial Measurement Unit (IMU) has been ranked 1st in overall accuracy in a U.S. Military-commissioned IMU trade study of 19 competing IMUs being evaluated as an alternative to the Honeywell HG1700 for various weapons systems.

The objective of the third-party independent study was to deliver a comprehensive report to the government and make a recommendation supported by clear and compelling technical, financial, and other relevant data collected regarding the most advantageous IMU products and services available in the market today. 19 IMUs of various technologies, complexity, cost, and developmental status, from leading manufacturers, were evaluated in short and long flyout simulations against the HG1700.

The study concluded that EMCORE’s SDI500/505 IMU, with reduced size, weight, and power compared to HG1700, delivered “compelling performance, cost, SWAP, maturity” and outperformed the HG1700 in both flyout simulations. The test house spokesperson stated, “the SDI500/505 system was a solid performer across the performance, technical maturity, warhead integration, and cost analysis threads.” Therefore, the SDI500/505 scored #1 out of the 19 different IMUs tested.

“The results of this IMU trade study are further validation of the clear industry leadership of our mature and proven SDI500/505 IMU,” said Albert Lu, EMCORE’s Senior Vice President and General Manager, Aerospace & Defense. “They outperform other MEMS IMUs and continuously deliver comparable performance to older, costlier optical IMUs in a lower power, smaller, and lighter form factor,” added Mr. Lu.

The dual-use non-ITAR SDI500/505 IMUs are designed to achieve the demanding performance levels required in sophisticated systems, including weapons guidance and targeting, commercial and defense fixed-wing aircraft & helicopters, UAVs (Unmanned Autonomous Vehicles), and a wide variety of other high-precision commercial, industrial, marine, defense, and space applications. They leverage industry-leading Quartz MEMS technology to deliver Angle Random Walk (ARW) values of 0.02°/√hr with 1°/hr bias stability.