- Best-suited for mobile applications such as indoor navigation, fitness, weather forecast
- Provides atmospheric pressure with high accuracy
- Most accurate altitude due to sensor data fusion software
Based on the huge success of the predecessor in the mobile phone market, Bosch Sensortec releases the new BMP280 digital barometric pressure sensor with improved performance and the industry’s smallest footprint. The BMP280 provides the absolute pressure value along with temperature measurements.
Barometric pressure sensors enable a host of new mobile applications from indoor navigation with floor level tracking – e.g. to guide in shopping malls – to weather forecast and calorie consumption calculation in sports devices. The pressure value is also the essential input for many health-care applications like spirometers in which the lung volume of a person is measured. Today, the barometric pressure sensor is an inherent part of high-end smart phones.
“The BMP180 has literally opened a new dimension to navigation applications requiring precise altitude information and has been widely recognized as the best-in-class MEMS based barometric pressure sensor in 2012. Our new BMP280 will even exceed this performance, especially regarding temperature stability, sensor resolution and noise-to-power ratio”, explains Leopold Beer, Marketing Director of Bosch Sensortec. “At the same time we were able to shrink the footprint of the package by staggering 63 %. We are pushing the technological limits again.”
Small footprint and improved electrical characteristics
With its footprint of 2.5 x 2.0 mm2 and a height of 0.95 mm in an 8-pin metal-lid LGA package the sensor offers highest design flexibility. This way, it can easily be implemented into multifunctional sports wrist watches. Furthermore, the power consumption has been reduced by a factor of 4. Its low current consumption of now only 2.7 ?A and its wide measurement range from 300 to 1100 hPa make the BMP280 ideally suited for all battery driven outdoor applications.
The BMP280 offers a significant improvement of the absolute accuracy. Nevertheless, it shares with its predecessor BMP180 its very high relative accuracy of ±0.12 hPa, which is equivalent to only ±1 m difference in altitude. This is beneficial for all applications where the pressure sensor is used to complementarily support the GPS system in order to obtain more precise and faster position determination. The sensor noise has been be reduced by a factor of 2.3.
The offset temperature coefficient of the new device amounts to only 1.5 Pa/K, translating to an altitude stability over temperature of 12.6 cm/K and the resolution of the pressure measurement could be melted down to 0.18 Pa (1,5 cm). The BMP280’s low TCO and its high resolution will become noticeable in applications requiring the user’s precise altitude. E.g. location based services on handheld devices require the vertical position of a user within a building even if the device temperature changes by several degrees Celsius. Thus, for its accurate pressure reading, the BMP280 is ideally suited for floor tracking in in-door navigation applications.
The sensor is equipped with both I2C and SPI communication interfaces. Three power modes and separately configurable oversampling rates for pressure and temperature measurements empower designers to freely adapt the BMP280 to the use-case. The optional integrated IIR filter eliminates short-term measurement variations caused by environmental influences. Proven settings are available for specific use-cases such as weather logging or indoor navigation.
Faster, more accurate navigation through data fusion software
In combination with Bosch Sensortec’s sensor data fusion software ACP2.0 (Altitude Content Provider 2.0), the sensor provides the most precise altitude available. ACP2.0 intelligently fuses the pressure sensor data with reference values – either directly from GPS signal or calculated from sea level pressure value provided by the nearest weather station via web service – depending on their availability.
Bosch Sensortec GmbH is a fully owned subsidiary of Robert Bosch GmbH. It develops and markets micro-mechanical sensors for consumer electronics, mobile phones, safety systems, industrial technology and logistics. The product portfolio includes triaxial geomagnetic and acceleration sensors, triaxial gyroscopes, barometric pressure sensors and a comprehensive software portfolio for various applications. Since its foundation in 2005 Bosch Sensortec emerged as the technology leader in the addressed markets. The Bosch Group has been the global market leader for MEMS sensors since 1998 and has to date sold more than 2 billion MEMS sensors.
For more information, go to www.bosch-sensortec.com
The Bosch Group is a leading global supplier of technology and services. In the areas of automotive and industrial technology, consumer goods, and building technology, more than 300,000 associates generated sales of 51.5 billion euros in fiscal 2011. The Bosch Group comprises Robert Bosch GmbH and its roughly 350 subsidiaries and regional companies in some 60 countries. If its sales and service partners are included, then Bosch is represented in roughly 150 countries. This worldwide development, manufacturing, and sales network is the foundation for further growth. Bosch spent some 4.2 billion euros for research and development in 2011, and applied for over 4,100 patents worldwide. With all its products and services, Bosch enhances the quality of life by providing solutions which are both innovative and beneficial.
Further information is available online at www.bosch.com and www.bosch-press.com
