All messages that contain fields that represent a measurement of a physical quantity (should) always use SI units for those fields. That is certainly true for all core message sets. REP-103 documents this. We can't guarantee that every author of every non-standard / non-core message pkg adhered to this requirement though. The IMU msgs do however.
In the case of sensor_msgs/Imu
, it's also stated in the comments in the .msg
file itself (second line of the comments in the file that you linked):
Accelerations should be in m/s^2 (not in g's), and rotational velocity should be in rad/sec
Note also that the orientation
field is a quaternion, not a RPYx quartet.