Engineering the unconventional

The industry is working to close the gap between consumer components and tactical requirements. Consumer sensors often lack durability and stability, while tactical-grade sensors require large budgets and are subject to strict regulations.

The impact of customization

The transition from generic hardware to end-to-end customized platforms is what makes modern IMU development unique. A rigorous three-step development cycle is necessary to optimize the cost-performance ratio:

1. Concept & simulation: Defining the architecture and performing damping simulations to predict behavior under real-world conditions including vibration, temperature variations and drift.
2. Multidisciplinary development: Combining software implementation and bespoke algorithm creation with hardware and mechanical design.
3. Production & calibration: Establishing precise calibration methods for data ingestion, scaling, offsets, and temperature compensation ensures each unit meets tactical standards.

Cross-sector applications

• Industrial motion & vibration diagnostics: High-accuracy sensors support advanced vibration analysis for motors, pumps, and gearboxes. In industrial environments, the challenge is distinguishing meaningful signals from background noise. Higher stability IMUs make that distinction more reliable, improving diagnostics and reducing false positives.
• Medical & biomechanics systems: Customized IMUs in healthcare enable advanced movement analysis systems and rehabilitation devices. Wearable motion capture tracks patient recovery with granular detail, providing data-driven insights into biomechanical health.
• AR/VR/XR motion tracking: The demand for immersion requires low-latency head tracking and motion prediction. Advanced sensor fusion allows for accurate indoor positioning even in environments where GPS signals are unavailable.

Closing the gap: Why accuracy is the new currency

Raw data quality is becoming increasingly important as industries adopt more automation and real-time operations. Beyond standard specifications, Integrated SoCs, edge AI, and custom building blocks can be tailored to environmental needs. Sustainable, user-focused, and scalable IMU solutions make high-precision navigation and diagnostics accessible, cost-efficient, and ready for large-scale production.

In an increasingly complex world, the most successful innovations will be those that make high-end precision a standard operating reality. Ready to close the gap between tactical accuracy and consumer components for your next project?

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Unlocking performance and flexibility through embedded design

Innovation thrives when technology becomes invisible, when performance, security and connectivity work seamlessly in the background. Unlike pre-assembled modules, CoB platforms – such as NXP’s – brings all key hardware and software components together in a single, secure chip – combining dual-band Wi-Fi (2.4 GHz & 5 GHz), Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) and open-standard protocols, ready to be mounted directly onto a customized PCB.

This embedded approach goes beyond saving space. It provides complete control over critical design elements such as RF performance, security architecture, thermal management, memory capacity and physical interfaces. Product teams can fine-tune devices to meet specific requirements, ensuring strong connectivity, reliability and energy efficiency across a wide range of applications – from wearable medical devices to smart home appliances or industrial sensors.

Innovation without compromise: Cost, security and speed

CoB designs deliver more than performance. By embedding the chip directly onto the PCB rather than relying on pre-assembled modules, developers can reduce costs and enhance security while gaining greater control over configuration, firmware and supply chain management. Although this approach may require more design-in effort than using a pre-certified module, it offers far more flexibility in placement, performance tuning and I/O access—ensuring the full potential of the SoC can be leveraged. At Verhaert, we apply this method in projects such as our collaboration with Newell, where custom SoC integration has proven to deliver tangible benefits in both cost efficiency and security. Devices become harder to hack, easier to update and ready for global deployment.

This approach also opens new business opportunities. Companies can explore connected-product-as-a-service models that keep devices intelligent and adaptable long after they leave the factory. From smart plugs to connected appliances, the possibilities for differentiation are endless.

The future of product innovation is embedded

We stand at the edge of a new frontier, where connected products are more than just tools – they’re experiences. Embedded solutions like NXP’s Chip-on-Board represent a shift toward products that are smaller, smarter, secure, scalable, cost-effective and sustainable.

With strong embedded solutions, innovation teams gain the freedom to move faster, think bigger and create products that not only meet today’s needs but help shape the future. The principle is simple: smarter products start with smarter design. If you’re exploring how to bring such possibilities to life, now is the time to start the conversation.

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More than just a plan, a strategic roadmap acts as a living, evolving blueprint, helping teams steer through uncertainty with confidence. It’s not about rigid timelines—it’s about creating growth patterns, aligning vision, accelerating decisions, and sharing ownership of the future. When done right, a roadmap turns hesitation into excitement, securing buy-in from stakeholders who can see not just where you’re going, but why it matters.

Innovation without direction can lead to chaos

Picture setting out on a road trip with no map, no landmarks, and no idea where you’re headed. That’s what innovation feels like without a clear direction. Stakeholders struggle to connect the dots, unsure how individual ideas fit into the bigger picture. A roadmap puts ideas on a path forward—even those that aren’t currently feasible. It doesn’t dismiss ambitious goals simply because they seem out of reach today. Instead, it structures them into a step-wise approach, ensuring that what seems impossible can become a reality in the future. By mapping out the journey, businesses identify gaps and align solutions with real needs. More than a strategy, a roadmap tells a compelling story of progress, transforming innovation from a risky bet into a calculated advantage.

Here’s another twist: the most effective roadmaps aren’t static. They’re not a one-time workshop or an inspirational brainstorming session that gets shelved. They’re living, organic frameworks that evolve as markets shift, customer needs change, and new opportunities arise. By continuously refining the roadmap, businesses don’t just react to change—they anticipate it, staying ahead of the curve while keeping stakeholders engaged and invested.

Roadmaps shape an evolving vision, turning complexity into clarity

Roadmaps do more than keep teams on track—they build trust, offering a clear visual guide that reassures stakeholders they’re making the right decisions for their innovation projects. It structures all key information in a time-based framework, guiding discussions and aligning actions. 

A well-crafted roadmap turns complexity into clarity by:

• Structuring information over time: showing stakeholders where they’re headed while looking at the day after tomorrow.
• Anticipating challenges: making obstacles feel like stepping stones rather than roadblocks.
• Creating transparency: building trust by making innovation feel less like a gamble and more like a well-planned journey.
• Putting long-term opportunities into focus: ensuring that even distant goals can be planned for and achieved step by step.
• Fostering continuity: guaranteeing that ideas don’t get lost in transitions but instead gain traction over time.

By visualizing the journey ahead, roadmaps keep internal teams and stakeholders on the same page, ensuring seamless collaboration and a shared vision for success.

The collaborative advantage: thinking ahead together

The most groundbreaking innovations thrive on collaboration. Instead of working in isolation, co-creating a roadmap with stakeholders leads to deeper insights and better outcomes. By thinking ahead together, businesses align strategies and create solutions that are both technically brilliant and operationally relevant. This collaborative approach builds stronger partnerships, fuels creativity, and ensures that every step forward is meaningful. A shared vision leads to richer results, making roadmapping an essential tool for driving meaningful, customer-focused innovation. The best roadmaps go beyond strategy, they’re inspirational, turning what’s possible into what’s next.

Roadmaps: Your path to transformational success

For R&D directors, roadmaps are powerful for driving meaningful innovation. Besides keeping teams on track, they align innovation with business goals, secure stakeholder buy-in, and drive long-term success. The best part? Roadmaps don’t just plan the future, they create it. Start building yours today and turn bold ideas into tangible results.

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Innovation often starts with research into the possibilities of new technologies. When should you stop exploring technology and switch to a markets and user-focused approach? What happens when you make that turn too late, too early, or don’t even make it? How do you switch, incorporate market adoption and window of opportunity? Get insights from Nick van Helleputte, Scientific Director Circuits & Systems at imec, and Dirck Seynaeve, Project Coordinator IoT at Verhaert, on the paradox between technology push and market pull.

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Local data processing & analysis

The last few years we’ve seen that more and more advanced algorithms and machine learning capabilities are integrated within the MEMS. This allows for processing and interpreting data on the premise in real time. These devices are mostly equipped with multiple integrated sensors and possibly external sensors connected to the device. ML-MEMS can be programmed to analyze the sensor data for specific requirements and can make decisions by learning new data patterns.

Having these machine learning capabilities built-in offers various advantages for the product compared to dedicated edge AI ASICs or processing in the cloud. On the one hand, there’s the pricing because the device will cost less to build combined with not having to pay edge AI and data costs and processing costs in the cloud. On the other hand, they reduce or avoid the amount of data sent to local or cloud data storage, so they also have far less impact on the environment.

Reducing power consumption

One of the biggest advantages of ML-MEMS is their power saving capability, which is of huge importance for battery powered devices. Most of the sensor data processing consumes far lower power (ex. of 1/100 can be reached) of what the microprocessor would need in terms of power. Subsequently, this leads to a lower demand from CPU resources resulting in lower cost versions.

As a continuous stream of data is processed using the MEMS integrated algorithm/AI, the MEMS can take the role of watchdog, leaving the processor of the device in sleep mode only consuming a few micro-amps. Next, the MEMS are able to wake up the entire module processor and/or system based upon the MEMS own pre-programmed decision making, resulting in lower power consumption.

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Companies are always looking for ways to make their innovation process more efficient. Using standard designs is one of those methods that can optimize the development process. By reusing key components and applications as well for systems using several components, it reduces development times and lowers risks. This leads to more focus on the criticalities, and in the end a better product and happy customer. This webinar was presented by Dirck Seynaeve, Project coordinator IoT at Verhaert.

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