For most companies, the worst part about designing a sensor system is the algorithms. You usually have to start the most common algorithm development from scratch, even if you’re just adding or changing product functionality.

But on Thursday at the 2014 MEMS Executive Congress, the MEMS Industry Group (MIG) announced the creation of the Accelerated Innovation Community (AIC), the industry’s first open-source algorithm cooperative that will provide developers with access to a library of introductory algorithms. The AIC website (www.memsindustrygroup.org/aic) is already populated with C source files for 3-, 6-, and 9-axis sensor fusion from Freescale, with PNI contributing quaternion to heading, pitch, and roll; PPG sensor heart rate monitoring; and step counting algorithms. The MIG expects additional contributions to the AIC library from other member companies over the next couple of months, and is already seeing industry support from Analog Devices, Carnegie Mellon, NIST, and others.

The AIC should go a long way towards making sensor development more accessible; this means more time for you developers out there to innovate on some new killer apps.