Motion Sensor with Raspberry Pi and MPU6050 - Part 1

• Tutorials
• Product Design
• Sensors

This blog will help you build your own, low cost 3-axis motion sensor using Raspberry Pi and Invensense MPU6050. For the benefit of the beginners, I will be beginning with the basics - setting up Raspberry Pi in part 1 of this blog series and then proceed to interfacing the MEMS based tri-axial motion sensing unit - MPU6050 to Raspberry Pi board in part 2. The final part no. 3 will be about acquiring data on the client computer. I have  tried multiple methods (including data transmission to a web browser on the client computer). 

Now, lets gets started with part 1.

Setting up Raspberry Pi 

a. Inventory: I worked with the following list of items. However, you can go for latest models and higher SD memory.

-  Raspberry Pi Model B : 700 MHz, 512 MB RAM, ARM1176JZF-6 processor

- 4GB SD Memory of Transcend make, I used a class 4 memory card

- 5 V , 1A power supply

- Display unit for RPi. One that supports HDMI should be fine. If you have a old display unit that supports DVI, you would need a HDMI to DVI connector. 

and of course a computer. for this session we don't need MPU6050 yet.  Raspberry Pi (RPi) model I used is not the latest, however, it will work the same with the latest  RPi models, they are faster and have better numbers.

b. Now, Raspberry Pi is a credit card sized computer with most of the peripherals - USB, ethernet, HDMI port, SD card slot built on.

To get started, we need to set up the operating system on Raspberry Pi. There are number of options available, most popular is Raspbian Wheezy, a version based on Debian. 

Download the image file for Raspbian Wheezy from https://www.raspberrypi.org/downloads/raspbian/ to a computer. 

Install image file to SD card on a windows computer as documented at https://www.raspberrypi.org/documentation/installa.... Basically we need a Operating System image writing tool.

c. Once, the SD card is loaded with the OS, insert it in RPi SD card slot. Connect USB based keyboard and mouse to your Raspberry Pi and supply 5V, 1A power from the power supply to RPi.

You should see the logo of Raspberry Pi and system booting up on the display connected to Raspberry Pi. On boot up, you need to login. The default  log in username is pi and password is raspberry. 

Thats it to begin with. We shall get into details in the next few sessions.

Thanks for reading. Post your feedback and suggestions in the comments section below. 

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