Scam - but how do they make money ?...

On Thursday, July 16, 2020 at 1:20:41 PM UTC-7, Joe Gwinn wrote:
On Thu, 16 Jul 2020 10:13:49 +0100, Michael Kellett <mk@mkesc.co.uk
wrote:

On 15/07/2020 20:12, bitrex wrote:
On 7/15/2020 12:15 PM, Joe Gwinn wrote:
On Wed, 15 Jul 2020 09:18:11 +0100, Michael Kellett <mk@mkesc.co.uk
wrote:

Found this on \"All about Ciruits\" -

https://www.allaboutcircuits.com/news/micron-digital-claims-to-have-eliminated-drifting-in-imus/?utm_source=All+About+Circuits+Members&utm_campaign=a3e890e124-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2020_07_09_11_04_COPY_02&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_2565529c4b-a3e890e124-280503221


It takes you here:

http://www.romos.io/index.asp?FPFHFGFHIRJEIJILIG

They claim an inertial measuring breakthrough:

\"Once initialized, ROMOS will experience a maximum of 0.5mm static
variance offset from true position data over its operational lifetime.\"

With a dose of snake oil.

\"Using higher dimensional computations with back-propagation, Drift is
also eliminated from positional data.\"

This sounds like the standard 6-state or 9-state Kalman Filter.  They
do work in big vector spaces.

External references are also provided to this Kalman Filter.

The information to cancel drift is not in the IMU data, so software
can do nothing to cancel drift from IMU data alone.


There is an absurd video too.

It\'s way to good (by many orders of magnitude) to be true - but what\'s
the point ?

How do they make money, are they hoping to trap just one lunatic venture
capitalist ?

I would think that a direct test would end the game, so I don\'t see
how even a lunatic investor could be fooled for long.

Micron Dynamics claims that the technology is patented, so I sent an
email asking for patent numbers.


Joe Gwinn


I don\'t see what\'s intrinsically bullshit or about claims of an inertial
measurement breakthrough vs. claims of real woo like cold fusion or
machines that run on their own power.

This doesn\'t seem quite in that same vein, and I doubt there\'s anyone
here with the qualifications to make credible commentary as to what\'s
actually possible or isn\'t with whatever machine-learning technique they
say they\'re applying. If they do have patents that\'s some amount of
credibility, I don\'t know whether I\'d trust my own evaluation of the
claims any more than the patent office, they\'re not all just
rubber-stampers who let any old thing fly.

Either they\'ll deliver, or they won\'t, most things in life tend to be
one thing or the other. But it seems like more of a gamble than an
outright \"scam\" that breaks the laws of physics without further
information. it\'s the kind of gamble VC people do day in and day out and
win or lose on, depending.

If they can\'t or won\'t provide references to the patents they claim to
have that would surely make me more skeptical

So far, no response.


There are (at least) a couple of reasons to be sceptical:

First the term \"static variance offset\" is not standard IMU talk - if
you Google it you\'ll find one specific hit - under ROMOS !

Yeah, but many organizations develop their own private jargon, so that
tells us little.


Secondly, lets take that at face value - they seem to be saying that the
position error over the device lifetime will be 0.5mm.
From school physics you know that s = (a.t^2)/2 (s is distance a is
acceleration.
Lets assume a life of 5 years = 1.576E8 seconds
re-arranging we get a = 2s/(t^2) = 1e-3/(2.48E16) = 4e-20 m/s/s
This level of acceleration bias is not just unlikely but impossible.
Current good parts offer figures like 3ug = 3E-5 m/s/s bias instability.
If Micron Dynamics really had a 15 order of magnitude breakthrough they
would be marketing in a slightly different way.

Yeah. As was pointed out upthread, a half millimeter max drift in
even a month would be really useful for boat and airplane navigation,
far better than any inertial sensor currenly available, and only $5
per unit.

Nor can fancy software overcome sensor noise, especially the
random-walk kind, which cannot be improved by averaging.

Joe Gwinn

=========================================
For the record, here is the text of my email to Micron Digital:

Hello.

I recently came across your website
http://www.romos.io/index.asp?FPFHFGFHIRJEIJILIG> and am perplexed.

The sensor appears to be a standard MEMS IMU with a 6-state or 9-state
Kalman filter (each state can be considered to be a dimension in a 6
or 9 dimensional vector space) that nonetheless doesn\'t drift at all.
The key question is how this is accomplished without any external
reference.

The website mentions that the technology is patented. Which patent
numbers should I consult?

Thanks, ....

======================================
Red flags:
1. Their website contains absolutely no technical specifications or details..

2. Their name, Micron Digital, is obviously chosen so that you might think they are Micro Technology.

There is no such thing as a \"zero drift\" IMU. This implies a noiseless system. It falls into the category of perpetual motion machines.
 

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