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InterSense

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InterSense
Information
Industry Motion tracking, inertial sensors
Founded 1996 (began in 1994 as Angularis Inertial Technologies)
Founder Eric Foxlin
Headquarters Billerica, Massachusetts, United States
Notable Personnel Eric Foxlin (founder), Charlie Miller (president and CEO in 1999 and 2000), Peter Tarca (CEO from 2001), TC Browne (president and CEO in 2011)
Products IS-300, IS-600, IS-900, InterTrax, InertiaCube, IS-1200, IS-1500, NavChip
Parent Thales Defense & Security, Inc.
Website https://www.intersense.com


InterSense is an American brand of motion trackers and inertial sensors. It began as a company founded in 1996 by Eric Foxlin as a commercial extension of his research at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).[1] Its trackers combine miniature gyroscopes and accelerometers with other sensors through sensor fusion. The best known, the IS-900, pairs inertial sensing with ultrasonic ranging and was used to track heads, wands and cameras in CAVE displays, virtual reality workbenches, flight and weapons simulators and film production.[2][3] The company also sold the InterTrax head tracker for consumer and professional head-mounted displays and the InertiaCube orientation sensor.[4]

Gentex Corporation bought InterSense in 2011. Thales acquired the business from Gentex together with the Visionix helmet-mounted display business, and the combined company, Thales Visionix, began operating on 28 December 2012.[5][6] InterSense is now a product brand of Thales Visionix, a division of Thales Defense & Security, Inc. in Billerica, Massachusetts.[1] Thales has announced the end of life of the InertiaCube 4 (June 2024) and the IS-900 (May 2025).[2][7]

Reviewed 11 October 2026. History, products, funding, executives, papers, acquisitions, specifications and end-of-life status checked against each cited source. About review dates.

History

Origins and founding

Eric Foxlin was a graduate student at MIT researching virtual reality systems when he proposed a miniature tracker based on the inertial measurement technology used in large ship-borne navigation systems. NASA's Ames Research Center supported the work with a seed grant, and the resulting miniature, body-wearable, sourceless tracker was used to attract venture capital and start InterSense in 1996.[8] A 1994 paper by Foxlin and N. Durlach described an inertial head-orientation tracker with automatic drift compensation for use with HMDs, and Foxlin presented a complementary separate-bias Kalman filter for inertial head tracking at IEEE VRAIS in 1996.[9]

According to the company's 1996 profile, the business began in 1994 as Angularis Inertial Technologies, set up by Foxlin to offer sourceless tracking as an alternative to magnetic, optical and mechanical trackers. In 1996 Angularis became InterSense and introduced the InterGlide system, a series of trackers comprising the IS-300, IS-310, IS-310XL and IS-320XL.[10] A 1999 company history said InterSense was founded on Foxlin's Ph.D. research on drift-corrected inertial sensors at MIT, and listed Boeing, Disney Studios, Hughes Training, Lockheed, MIT, NASA, Raytheon, Turner Broadcasting and the University of Washington among its customers.[11]

Burlington years (1998-2001)

By 1998 the company was based in Burlington, Massachusetts.[9] At SIGGRAPH 98, Foxlin, Michael Harrington and George Pfeifer of InterSense presented Constellation, a tracking system for augmented reality and television virtual sets. It used an inertial navigation system aided by ultrasonic time-of-flight range measurements to wireless transponder beacons, which were triggered one at a time by infrared codes. An extended Kalman filter used the inertial data to screen out corrupt range readings and used the remaining ranges to correct inertial drift. The paper described the InertiaCube sensing unit as measuring 2.7 x 3.4 x 3 cm, and the authors estimated that accuracy better than 2 mm could be reached with further compensation of transducer misalignment.[9]

InterSense launched the InterTrax head tracker in July 1998.[4] On 9 August 1999 it announced the IS-900 series, based on the Constellation technology and the company's SensorFusion software, with four versions: the IS-900 VET (Virtual Environment Tracker) for CAVEs and cubes, the VWT (Virtual Workbench Tracker), the LAT (Large Area Tracker) for room and wall displays, and the SCT (Studio Camera Tracker) for television studios. CEO Charlie Miller said the line delivered "the most precise, real-time, multi-point tracking on the market".[3]

On 8 November 1999 InterSense announced a 4 million US dollar second venture round led by Zero Stage Capital, with Hambrecht & Quist, Furneaux & Company, Dominion Ventures, Claflin Capital and Anchor Capital. All of the original investors took part, bringing total private equity funding to 10 million US dollars. The company said the money would launch the IS-900 line and fund entry into the virtual prototyping and media markets, and it cited SBIR awards and formal relationships with Sony Electronics, Kaiser Aerospace, Brown University and BA/Reflectone.[12]

On 12 June 2001 the company named Peter Tarca, formerly head of Grass Valley Group's Vibrint products division, as CEO and president. The announcement said InterSense had received the Frost & Sullivan 1999 Market Engineering Technology Innovation Award and the Computer Graphics World 1999 Innovation Award for the IS-900 series.[13]

Simulation, film and new sensors (2001-2011)

At SIGGRAPH 2001 in Los Angeles, InterSense launched the InertiaCube2, an orientation sensor that connected directly to a PC serial port. It had nine sensing elements, a full 360-degree range on all axes and a 120 Hz update rate.[14] On the same day it announced Fakespace Systems as a reseller. Fakespace was to integrate the IS-900 VET and VWT trackers with its immersive visualization systems, a range that ran from CAVEs and RAVEs to WorkWalls and ImmersaDesks.[15]

NASA's 2005 Spinoff report described InterSense as based in Bedford, Massachusetts. It said the company's head and helmet trackers were supplied to government contractors including Boeing, Lockheed Martin and L3 Communications' Link Simulation and Training division, and were used in simulators such as the U.S. Army's Aviation Combined Arms Tactical Trainer (AVCATT). The report also said InterSense had worked to integrate its inertial head tracker into Microsoft's Flight Simulator 2002 and Flight Simulator 2004: A Century of Flight.[8]

Foxlin continued to publish on hybrid tracking at ISMAR and IEEE VR, including a circular data-matrix fiducial system for a wearable vision-inertial self-tracker (2002), the VIS-Tracker (2003) and FlightTracker, an optical and inertial tracker for cockpit enhanced vision (2004).[16][17][18] In October 2006 the company released a new generation of its IS-1200 VisTracker, a wide-area inertial-optical tracker aimed at mixed and augmented reality. It drew power from a USB port, used passive reference patterns and an embedded Blackfin DSP, and needed only a one-time registration.[19]

The trackers were also used in virtual production. In a 2011 company news post, InterSense said Pixar had used the IS-900 and its VCam virtual camera technology to plan hand-held shots for Toy Story 3, that the makers of Alice in Wonderland had combined the IS-1200 with Lightcraft Technology's Previzion system for on-set visualization, and that its technology had helped on Avatar, Monsters, Inc. and The Polar Express.[20]

On 17 August 2011, at the AUVSI show in Washington, D.C., InterSense announced the commercial availability of NavChip, a MEMS inertial measurement unit in a chip-sized package for small unmanned vehicles, personnel navigation, stabilization and head-mounted displays. TC Browne was then president and CEO.[21]

Gentex and Thales

In November 2011 Gentex Corporation of Carbondale, Pennsylvania, a maker of helmets and helmet-mounted displays, acquired substantially all of the assets of InterSense, which was then headquartered in Billerica, Massachusetts. Terms were not disclosed. InterSense general manager Ken Jones became a Gentex vice president, and other InterSense leaders, including Foxlin, joined the new Gentex subsidiary. Gentex CEO L. Peter Frieder said the deal would accelerate the company's work in simulation, augmented reality and helmet-mounted technology.[5][22]

Thales then bought the Visionix helmet-mounted display business and the InterSense motion tracking business from Gentex. Effective 28 December 2012 they operated as Thales Visionix, Inc., a wholly owned Thales subsidiary working under a proxy agreement with the U.S. Department of Defense, with sites in Aurora, Illinois, and Billerica. Thales said it would continue to develop the motion tracking business, whose systems were marketed under the InterSense brand and used in HMD products.[6][23] InterSense tracking is part of Thales Visionix's Scorpion helmet-mounted cueing system.[24]

On 26 June 2019, at Sensors Expo in San Jose, Thales announced the NavChip Series 3, with a typical in-run bias stability of 3 degrees per hour (against 5 degrees per hour for the original NavChip), a 1,000 Hz update rate and an embedded AHRS. Thales listed augmented and virtual reality among its applications.[25]

Current status

As of October 2026 the InterSense website, run by Thales Defense & Security, Inc., lists the NavChip family, InertiaCube 4, IS-900, IS-1200+ HObIT, IS-1500 and Scorpion.[1] Thales announced on 13 June 2024 that the InertiaCube 4 line was going end of life, with a limited last-time buy.[7] On 1 May 2025 it announced the end of life of the IS-900 line, with a last-time buy through 31 December 2025 or while supplies lasted.[2] IS-900 base units, MicroTrax trackers and SoniDisc and SoniRail ultrasonic components appear on the brand's end-of-life list.[26]

Products

Product Introduced Tracking method Notes
IS-300, IS-310, IS-310XL, IS-320XL (InterGlide) 1996 Inertial orientation (3DOF) The IS-300 used an InertiaCube sensor with gravitometer and compass readings to prevent gyroscope drift[10][27]
IS-600 Mark 2 By 1999 Inertial plus ultrasonic (6DOF) Ultrasonic time-of-flight measurements corrected accelerometer position drift; up to 150 Hz; angular motion prediction up to 50 ms[28]
InterTrax July 1998 Inertial orientation (3DOF) Bundled with Sony Glasstron LDI displays from 1,750 US dollars (1999) and with I-glasses in the PC-VR line[4][29]
IS-900 (VET, VWT, LAT, SCT) August 1999 Inertial plus ultrasonic (6DOF) Wide-area tracking for CAVEs, workbenches, walls and studio cameras; end of life announced May 2025[3][2]
InterTrax2 July 2000 Inertial orientation (3DOF) USB head tracker shown at SIGGRAPH 2000, with middleware for the PlayStation 2[30]
InertiaCube2 August 2001 Inertial orientation (3DOF) Serial-port orientation sensor, 120 Hz[14]
IS-1200 VisTracker New generation October 2006 Inertial plus optical fiducials (6DOF) Wide-area tracking for mixed and augmented reality[19]
NavChip August 2011 MEMS inertial measurement unit Series 3 added in June 2019[21][25]
InertiaCube 4 Not stated Inertial orientation (3DOF) End of life announced June 2024[7]
IS-1200+ HObIT Not stated Inertial plus optical fiducials (6DOF) Head-worn or object-mounted; 180 Hz[31]
IS-1500 Not stated Vision-inertial, fiducials and natural features (6DOF) InertiaCam sensor with a NavChip IMU, for mixed reality and GPS-denied navigation[32]

IS-900

The IS-900 uses InterSense's inertial-ultrasonic hybrid tracking, which Thales says makes it immune to metallic interference. For immersive displays it can be fitted with a MicroTrax head tracker for stereo glasses, a MicroTrax wand and a MicroTrax hand tracker for virtual and haptic gloves, with wireless versions available.[2] The published specifications are:[2]

Specification Value
Degrees of freedom 6 (X, Y, Z, yaw, pitch and roll)
Resolution 0.75 mm and 0.05 degrees (1.5 mm and 0.10 degrees wireless)
Static accuracy 2.0 to 3.0 mm (3.0 to 5.0 mm wireless MicroTrax); 0.25 degrees RMS pitch and roll, 0.50 degrees RMS yaw (wired)
Update rate 180 Hz nominal (120 Hz nominal wireless)
Latency 4 ms typical
Motion prediction Up to 50 ms
SimTracker configuration Up to 12 SoniStrips (20 square metres), up to 4 devices
VETracker configuration Up to 84 SoniStrips (140 square metres), up to 7 devices

InertiaCube 4

The InertiaCube 4 is a 3DOF MEMS orientation sensor that integrates angular rate to obtain orientation and uses Kalman filtering, with gravity and compass measurements, to limit gyroscope drift. Thales lists simulation and training, virtual and augmented reality, motion capture and robotics among its uses. It weighs 11 grams, measures 36.6 x 27.7 x 13.8 mm, updates at 200 Hz (1,000 Hz available over USB) and is rated at 1 degree yaw and 0.25 degree pitch and roll accuracy.[7]

XR work

InterSense was founded to bring inertial tracking to virtual reality head tracking, and its early trackers were sold for head tracking with HMDs.[10] In 1999 the company said its precision business unit worked with the HMD makers Kaiser Electro-Optics, N-Vision and Virtual Research, and InterSense and its distributors were to supply Sony Glasstron LDI displays bundled with the InterTrax tracker for real-time 3D walkthroughs.[4] Its PC-VR bundles, priced from 995 to 1,650 US dollars, paired InterTrax with i-O Display Systems' i-glasses for PC games and VR toolkits.[29] The InterTrax2 was developed with the Japanese partner AiCube so that a PlayStation 2 could run head-tracked VR software.[30]

Thales says the IS-900 has thousands of installations worldwide.[2] InterSense aimed the IS-900 line at CAVEs, ImmersaDesks, PowerWalls and workbench displays, and Fakespace resold the VET and VWT versions with its immersive displays.[3][15] The 1998 Constellation paper was written for wearable augmented reality and virtual-set camera tracking, and the later IS-1200 and IS-1500 vision-inertial trackers were also marketed for augmented and mixed reality.[9][19][32] The freeware input emulator GlovePIE also added support, marked as untested, for InterSense trackers and wands.[33]

See also

References

  1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 "About InterSense Products". InterSense. Thales Defense & Security, Inc.. https://www.intersense.com/about-intersense/. Retrieved 2026-10-11.
  2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 2.3 2.4 2.5 2.6 "IS-900". InterSense. Thales Defense & Security, Inc.. https://www.intersense.com/is-900-system/. Retrieved 2026-10-11.
  3. ↑ 3.0 3.1 3.2 3.3 "InterSense Introduces the IS-900 Series of Precision Motion Trackers". InterSense (archived by the Internet Archive). 1999-08-09. http://web.archive.org/web/20010221092911/http://www.isense.com:80/news/pr/1999/IS900.htm. Retrieved 2026-10-11.
  4. ↑ 4.0 4.1 4.2 4.3 "Sony and InterSense Join Forces to Supply Tracked Personal Display Systems to the Real-Time 3D Computing Market". InterSense (archived by the Internet Archive). 1999-07-13. http://web.archive.org/web/20010221161840/http://www.isense.com:80/news/pr/1999/sony.htm. Retrieved 2026-10-11.
  5. ↑ 5.0 5.1 "Gentex acquires InterSense for precise motion tracking tech". Semiconductor Digest. 2011-11-22. https://sst.semiconductor-digest.com/?p=45170. Retrieved 2026-10-11.
  6. ↑ 6.0 6.1 "Thales Completes Acquisition of Visionix and Expands Its Avionics Portfolio". InterSense. Thales. 2013-02-21. https://www.intersense.com/thales-aquires-visionix-expands-avionics-portfolio/. Retrieved 2026-10-11.
  7. ↑ 7.0 7.1 7.2 7.3 "InertiaCube 4". InterSense. Thales Defense & Security, Inc.. https://www.intersense.com/inertiacube4/. Retrieved 2026-10-11.
  8. ↑ 8.0 8.1 "Inertial Motion-Tracking Technology for Virtual 3-D". NASA Spinoff 2005. NASA. 2005. https://spinoff.nasa.gov/node/10403. Retrieved 2026-10-11.
  9. ↑ 9.0 9.1 9.2 9.3 Eric Foxlin, Michael Harrington, George Pfeifer (1998). "Constellation: A Wide-Range Wireless Motion-Tracking System for Augmented Reality and Virtual Set Applications". Proceedings of SIGGRAPH 98, ACM, pp. 371-378. https://graphicon.ru/oldgr/library/siggraph/98/papers/foxlin/foxlin.pdf. Retrieved 2026-10-11.
  10. ↑ 10.0 10.1 10.2 "Company profile". InterSense (archived by the Internet Archive). 1996-08-09. http://web.archive.org/web/19970103061216/http://www.isense.com:80/coprofile.htm. Retrieved 2026-10-11.
  11. ↑ "Company history". InterSense (archived by the Internet Archive). 1999. http://web.archive.org/web/19991013051411/http://isense.com:80/company_history.htm. Retrieved 2026-10-11.
  12. ↑ "InterSense Receives $4 Million in Second Round of Venture Capital Funding". InterSense (archived by the Internet Archive). 1999-11-08. http://web.archive.org/web/20010221093027/http://www.isense.com:80/news/pr/1999/funding.htm. Retrieved 2026-10-11.
  13. ↑ "InterSense Hires CEO; Peter Tarca Brings Leadership, Marketing Savvy to Start-up's Commercialization Efforts". InterSense (archived by the Internet Archive). 2001-06-12. http://web.archive.org/web/20010818091636/http://isense.com:80/news/pr/2001/0612_ceo.htm. Retrieved 2026-10-11.
  14. ↑ 14.0 14.1 "InterSense, Inc. Launches InertiaCube2, The World's Smallest Precision Orientation Sensor With Serial Interface". InterSense (archived by the Internet Archive). 2001-08-14. http://web.archive.org/web/20011116224947/http://isense.com:80/news/pr/2001/0814_icube.htm. Retrieved 2026-10-11.
  15. ↑ 15.0 15.1 "InterSense Adds Fakespace as a Reseller". InterSense (archived by the Internet Archive). 2001-08-14. http://web.archive.org/web/20011230170005/http://www.isense.com:80/news/pr/2001/0814_fspace.htm. Retrieved 2026-10-11.
  16. ↑ L. Naimark, E. Foxlin (2002). "Circular data matrix fiducial system and robust image processing for a wearable vision-inertial self-tracker". Proceedings, International Symposium on Mixed and Augmented Reality, pp. 27-36. https://doi.org/10.1109/ISMAR.2002.1115065. Retrieved 2026-10-11.
  17. ↑ E. Foxlin, L. Naimark (2003). "VIS-Tracker: a wearable vision-inertial self-tracker". IEEE Virtual Reality 2003, Proceedings, pp. 199-206. https://doi.org/10.1109/VR.2003.1191139. Retrieved 2026-10-11.
  18. ↑ E. Foxlin, Y. Altshuler, L. Naimark, M. Harrington (2004). "FlightTracker: A Novel Optical/Inertial Tracker for Cockpit Enhanced Vision". Third IEEE and ACM International Symposium on Mixed and Augmented Reality, pp. 212-221. https://doi.org/10.1109/ISMAR.2004.32. Retrieved 2026-10-11.
  19. ↑ 19.0 19.1 19.2 "InterSense Upgrades Wide-area Inertial Optical Motion Tracking System". Computer Graphics World. 2006-10-25. https://www.cgw.com/Press-Center/News/2006/InterSense-Upgrades-Wide-area-Inertial-Optical-M.aspx. Retrieved 2026-10-11.
  20. ↑ "InterSense Technology helps bring home major film awards". InterSense. 2011-04-01. https://www.intersense.com/intersense-technology-helps-bring-home-major-film-awards/. Retrieved 2026-10-11.
  21. ↑ 21.0 21.1 "InterSense Delivers Next-Generation "NavChip" IMU technology". InterSense. 2011-08-17. https://www.intersense.com/intersense-next-generation-navchip-imu-technology/. Retrieved 2026-10-11.
  22. ↑ "Gentex boosts expertise in motion- and head-tracking technology with acquisition of InterSense". Military & Aerospace Electronics. 2011-11-27. https://www.militaryaerospace.com/communications/article/16716557/gentex-boosts-expertise-in-motion-and-headtracking-technology-with-acquisition-of-intersense. Retrieved 2026-10-11.
  23. ↑ "Thales to operate Visionix and InterSense HMD acquisitions as Thales Visionix Inc.". Military & Aerospace Electronics. 2013-02-25. https://www.militaryaerospace.com/computers/article/16716062/thales-to-operate-visionix-and-intersense-hmd-acquisitions-as-thales-visionix-inc. Retrieved 2026-10-11.
  24. ↑ "Scorpion - Helmet Mounted Cueing System". InterSense. Thales Defense & Security, Inc.. https://www.intersense.com/scorpion/. Retrieved 2026-10-11.
  25. ↑ 25.0 25.1 "Thales Announces Its InterSense NavChip Series 3 Precision 6-Axis Inertial Measurement Unit (IMU) At Sensors Expo". InterSense. Thales. 2019-06-26. https://www.intersense.com/thales-announces-its-intersense-navchip-series-3-precision-6-axis-inertial-measurement-unit-imu-at-sensors-expo/. Retrieved 2026-10-11.
  26. ↑ "EOL and EOS Notifications". InterSense. Thales Defense & Security, Inc.. https://www.intersense.com/eol-notifications/. Retrieved 2026-10-11.
  27. ↑ "IS-300". InterSense (archived by the Internet Archive). 1999. http://web.archive.org/web/19991013061949/http://isense.com:80/is300.htm. Retrieved 2026-10-11.
  28. ↑ "IS-600 Mark2". InterSense (archived by the Internet Archive). 1999. http://web.archive.org/web/19991013070805/http://isense.com:80/is600.htm. Retrieved 2026-10-11.
  29. ↑ 29.0 29.1 "InterSense Introduces Entry-Level PC-VR Product Line to Bring Immersive Virtual Reality to the PC Gaming Market". InterSense (archived by the Internet Archive). 1999-11-15. http://web.archive.org/web/20010221161828/http://www.isense.com:80/news/pr/1999/iglasses.htm. Retrieved 2026-10-11.
  30. ↑ 30.0 30.1 "InterSense Spearheads Drive to Virtual Reality, Brings World's Smallest, High-Performance Head Tracker to Market". InterSense (archived by the Internet Archive). 2000-07-25. http://web.archive.org/web/20001214005600/http://www.isense.com:80/news/pr/2000/072500_itrax2.htm. Retrieved 2026-10-11.
  31. ↑ "IS-1200+ HObIT System". InterSense. Thales Defense & Security, Inc.. https://www.intersense.com/is-1200-hobit/. Retrieved 2026-10-11.
  32. ↑ 32.0 32.1 "IS-1500". InterSense. Thales Defense & Security, Inc.. https://www.intersense.com/is-1500/. Retrieved 2026-10-11.
  33. ↑ Carl Kenner (2011-12-31). "Glove Programmable Input Emulator (GlovePIE) Version 0.45 (31 December 2011) Free Version, readme.txt". GlovePIE Preservation, GitHub. https://github.com/GlovePIEPreservation/GlovePIE/blob/master/GlovePIE-0.46/readme.txt. Retrieved 2026-10-11.
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