Smart physics with smartphone sensors

E. Ballester1, J.C. Castro-Palacio2, L. Velázquez-Abad3, M.H. Giménez1, J.A. Monsoriu1, L.M. Sánchez Ruiz1
1
Escuela Técnica Superior de Ingeniería del Diseño (ETSID), Universitat Politècnica de València, Spain
2
Departement Chemie, Physikalische Chemie, Universität Basel, Switzerland.
3
Departamento de Física, Universidad Católica del Norte, Antofagasta, Chile.
lmsr@mat.upv.es

Abstract— Smartphones’ acceleration sensors have got
useful applications in standard physical situations. We have
taken advantage of its capabilities in a number of Physics
experiments and perform them in a series of examples within
classical mechanical and kinematic situations such as free and
damped oscillations due to Earth’s gravity. By properly
connecting the smartphones other data may be collected and
situations studied such as rotational motion. These experiences
have been carried out at the Higher Technical School of Design
Engineering (ETSID in Spanish) of the Universitat Politècnica of
València (Spain) and through these examples students learn
amenable applications of the capabilities of their smartphones,
that facilitate their interest and motivation in introductory and
first-year university Physics courses.
Keywords— Laboratory Experiences, Approaches to Student-
Centered Education, Teaching & Learning Experiences in
Engineering Education, First and Second Year Program
Introduction
I. INTRODUCTION
The use of portable devices in all the teaching levels of
Physics has increased very fast in the past decade. Various
experiments using digital cameras [1], webcams [2], optical
mouse of computers [3], wiimote [4], and other game console
controllers [5] have been reported. For instance, physical
processes can be followed and analyzed by using a simple
digital camera. The recorded videos can be used to measure
time intervals, distances and trajectories of moving objects.
Also wireless devices, such as the wiimote, are used in Physics
teaching. These devices bear a three-axis accelerometer which
communicates with the game console by a bluetooth device.
More recently, smartphones have been incorporated into the
variety of portable devices in Physics teaching [6-9].
Smartphones integrate in one device many capabilities which
were apart previously. These capabilities may include a
camera, a microphone, a speaker, an accelerometer sensor, a
magnetic field sensor, and an ambient light sensor.
In this contribution, we focus on the accelerometer sensor
of the smartphones and its applications to the study of
phenomena within the topic of Mechanics where the quantity
“acceleration” plays a central role. These experiences have
been carried out at the Higher Technical School of Design
Engineering (ETSID in Spanish) of the Technical University of
Valencia (Universitat Politècnica de València UPV, Spain).
This is a very basic topic in all General Physics courses for
Engineering and Physics degrees. We go through a series of
examples while we comment on various works published
recently in the literature which include our own contributions.
The outline of this work is the following. First we briefly
introduce the acceleration sensor and the Android application
to handle it, basically those we have used in our experiments.
Subsequently, three examples of free, damped and coupled
oscillations, respectively, are explained. In a next section, an
example of rotational motion of a cylindrical body is presented.
Finally, some conclusions and outlook are commented.
II. ACCELERATION SENSOR
The smartphones’ accelerometer sensor of is a micro-
electro-mechanical system based on three mutually
perpendicular silicon circuits, each one oscillating in one
direction as a ball hanging on a spring whose movement is
restricted to one direction. The shift in the position of the
moving body is usually measured by a capacitive effect.
The measurement of the acceleration sensors can be
registered with the free smartphone application Accelerometer
Monitor ver 1.5.0. This application takes 348 kB of SD card
memory and can also be downloaded from Google play
website [10]. This application shows the acceleration
components ax, ay, and az on x, y and z - axes at each time step.
The resolution of the sensor in the measurement of the
acceleration is įa = 0.01197 m/s² and the average sampling
time is įt=0.02 s. This application also allows saving an output
file, from which the data can be retrieved for further analysis.
The output of the mobile application with the acceleration
data is collected in an ASCII file. First, a heading with some
information such as "saving start date and time", "sensor
resolution" and "sensor vendor", can be found. Following the
heading, the sensor measurements are shown. The first three
columns indicate the acceleration in the three perpendicular
axis, x (perpendicular to the device, positive to the right), y
(along the device, positive upward) and z (perpendicular to x
and y-axis, with positive direction as coming out
perpendicularly from the device display).
Once the applications have been downloaded to the mobile
device, a small test can be performed to proof their correct
working. When the mobile is left quiet on a horizontal surface,
the output curves for the acceleration must exhibit values very
close to zero for x and y-axes, and around 9.8 m/s² for the z-
axis.

978-1-4799-3922-0/14/$31.00 ©2014 IEEE

 III. FREE AND DAMPED OSCILLATIONS
Very recently we studied the free and damped oscillations
of a smartphone with its acceleration sensor [6]. We will recall
here the main aspects of the experiments. In Figure 4a, a
photograph of the experimental setup is shown. In this figure
the following elements are present: (1) the smartphone, (2) cart,
(3) air track, (4) spring, (5) photometer and (6) fixed end. The
smartphone used in the experiments was an LG-E510 bearing
an Android version 2.3.4. The mass of the phone and the cart
were 124.0 g and 180.6 g, respectively. The data was collected
with the Accelerometer Monitor application whose features
were commented above in this document. The force constant of
the spring was ሺͳͺͻ േ ͹ሻȀ݉.
The acceleration versus time can be represented in terms of
a sinusoidal function,
In Figure 2, the experimental data of the acceleration are
shown along with a fit to equation (1) using the Levemberg-
Marquardt algorithm [11]. The parameters resulting from the
fit are shown in table 1. Similar results as in Figure 2 were
obtained in reference [6], where the values of the periods
calculated from the fitted frequencies and from the direct
measurement of the time with photometer were compared
yielding a very good agreement. The discrepancy was less
than ͳΨ for most cases.

 ܽሺ‫ݐ‬ሻ ൌ ‫ି ݁ܦ‬ఊ௧ ‫݊݅ݏ‬ሺ߱‫ ݐ‬൅ ߮ሻ ,  

where ‫ ܦ‬is the initial amplitude of the acceleration, ߛ is the

linear damping constant, ߱ is the angular frequency, and ߮ is
the phase constant. A damped oscillation can be also observed
on the display of the smartphone in Figure 1b.
To initiate the free oscillation experiment the air supply of
the air track is switched on. This allows a layer of air between
the cart and the air track to decrease the friction. Under these
conditions the motion of the cart is started with almost no
friction (ߛ ൌ Ͳሻ. In order to study damped harmonic
oscillations (ߛ ് Ͳሻ, the air supply was decreased in the air
track. This causes some friction to appear between the glider
and the air track.

Fig 2. Experimental acceleration data (open circles) and fitted curve (solid
line) for the free (top) and damped (bottom) harmonic motion.

Table 1. Fit of the experimental acceleration data to equation

Free Damped
D (m/s2) ͳǤʹͲͶ േ ͲǤͲͲ͸ ͲǤͻ͸͹ േ ͲǤͲͲͻ
ߛ (s-1) 0 ͲǤʹͷͺ േ ͲǤͲͲͶ
߱ (rad/s) ʹͳǤͷͶ͸ േ ͲǤͲͲͷ ͳ͹Ǥ͸͹ͳ േ ͲǤͲͲͳ
߮ ሺ‫݀ܽݎ‬ሻ ʹǤͶ͹ͻ േ ͲǤͲͲͻ െͲǤ͸ʹͻ േ ͲǤͲͲͷ
R2 0.9968 0.9927

IV. COUPLED OSCILLATIONS

Fig 1. a) Photograph of the experimental setup with the smartphone moving
with free oscillations. b) A close-up of the smartphone moving with damped
oscillatons.
In order to study coupled oscillations, we have used an air
track and two smartphones coupled by springs [7]. In Figure 3,
the elements of the setup are shown as follows: (1) and (2) are
the smartphones, (3) the photometer, (4) digital counter of the
photometer, (5) air supplier, (6) the connecting spring, and (7)
the right-hand fixed end.

Fig 3. Experimental setup to study coupled oscillations.
For this purpose, a smartphone was mounted on each cart.
The mobile (1) is a Smartphone LG-E510 and the mobile (2) is
a smartphone Samsung Galaxy S1GT-i9000. The mass of each
cart was ݉ ൌ ሺͷͲͲǤͷ േ ͲǤͳሻ݃. The force constant of each of
the three springs was ݇ ൌ ሺͶ͹Ǥͳ േ ͲǤʹሻܰ݉ିଵ . The
acceleration oscillations of carts 1 and 2 can be described by
the sum of the symmetric and antisymmetric oscillations,
ଵ smartphone can be fitted to the following sinusoidal functional
V. ROTATIONAL MOTION
Next we will illustrate an example of rotational motion. In
the following experiment, we use a cylindrical body and a
smartphone which is attached to one of its sides. Figure 5a
shows a photograph of the mounting. In Figure 5b, a
schematic representation of the setup is shown.
The purpose of the experiment is to measure the linear
velocity of the center of mass of the cylindrical body of radius
R=7.0 cm by means of measuring its angular velocity, ߱,
using the smartphone. The rotation axis of the smartphone is
the same as that of the cylindrical body. By giving a small
push to the cylindrical body it starts moving along the distance
L=50 cm with approximately a constant velocity of its center
of mass. In this experiment, the ܽ௫ and ܽ௬ components of the
acceleration vary with time while the ܽ௭ component is zero.
Both ܽ௫ and ܽ௬ components measured by the sensor of the
ܽଵ ൌ െ ሾ‫ܣ‬ଵ ߱ଵଶ •‹ሺ߱ଵ ‫ ݐ‬൅ ߮ଵ ሻ ൅ ‫ܣ‬ଶ ߱ଶଶ •‹ሺ߱ଶ ‫ ݐ‬൅ ߮ଶ ሻሿǡ  form,
ଶ

ଵ
ܽଶ ൌ െ ሾ‫ܣ‬ଵ ߱ଵଶ •‹ሺ߱ଵ ‫ ݐ‬൅ ߮ଵ ሻ െ ‫ܣ‬ଶ ߱ଶଶ •‹ሺ߱ଶ ‫ ݐ‬൅ ߮ଶ ሻሿǡ
ଶ
where ‫ܣ‬ଵ and ‫ܣ‬ଶ are the amplitudes, ߱ଵ and ߱ଶ the normal
angular frequencies, and ߮ଵ and ߮ଶ the phase constants, for
the symmetric and antisymetric modes, respectively. The
above equations reduce to the symmetric and antisymmetric
cases for ‫ܣ‬ଶ ൌ Ͳ and ‫ܣ‬ଵ ൌ Ͳ, respectively. More details on the
derivation of equations (2) and (3) can be found in Reference
[7]. In Figure 4, an arbitrary oscillation of the carts is shown.
The open circles indicate the experimental acceleration data
and the red solid line, the fit to equations (2) and (3). A very
good fit is observed.
Fig 4. Acceleration of the carts 1 (top) and 2 (bottom) for an oscillation
resulting from the combination of symmetric and asymmetric modes
 ܽሺ‫ݐ‬ሻ ൌ ‫ܣ‬௥ ‫݊݅ݏ‬ሺ߱௥ ‫ ݐ‬൅ ߠሻ 
where ‫ܣ‬௥ is the amplitude, ߱௥ is the angular velocity and ߠ the
phase constant. The results of the fitting of the acceleration
data to above equation are ‫ܣ‬௥ ൌ ሺͷǤ͸͵ േ ͲǤͲͷሻm/s2, ߱௥ ൌ
ሺͶǤͳͶͶ േ ͲǤͲͲ͵ሻrad/s, and ߠ ൌ ሺͶǤͶͷ േ ͲǤͲʹ) rad. The curve
of the acceleration ܽ௫ is shown in Figure 6. The parameters
and their uncertainties have been obtained by using the non-
linear fitting algorithm of Levenberg-Marquardt [11]. We are
also assuming that the friction force between the surface and
the body is enough to keep it rolling and never sliding. Under
this condition, the velocity of the center of mass can be
calculated as ‫ݒ‬௖௠ ൌ ߱௥ ܴ =ሺͲǤ͵ͳ͹ േ ͲǤͲͲͷሻ m/s.
Fig 5. a) Photograph of the cylindrical body and the smartphone during the
experiment. b) Schematic representation of the setup.

Fig 6. The experimental acceleration data (open circles) and the curve fit (red
solid line) for the Uniform Circular Motion Experiment.
The results obtained with the smartphone acceleration
sensor where compared with the results obtained from a video
recording of the center of mass of the cylindrical body. The
elapsed time along the distance ‫ ܮ‬ൌ ሺͲǤͷͲ േ ͲǤͲͳሻ m is
measured from the recording, resulting ‫ ݐ‬ൌ ሺͳǤͷͺ േ ͲǤͲͳሻs.
Then, the velocity of the center of mass, denoted in this case
ƍ ƍ
as, ‫ݒ‬௖௠  was calculated as ‫ݒ‬௖௠ ൌ ‫ܮ‬Ȁ‫= ݐ‬ሺͲǤ͵ʹ͹ േ ͲǤͲͲ͵ሻ m/s.
The discrepancy of ͵Ǥ͵Ψ indicates the good agreement
between both variants.
VI. CONCLUSIONS AND OUTLOOK
There is a number of works on the smartphone acceleration
sensor which demonstrate the feasibility of using this sensor in
Physics teaching experiments, mostly in the topic of
Mechanics which is present in all Introductory and General
Physics Courses. In this work we have shown examples for
several types of one-dimensional motions where the
acceleration plays an important role in characterizing the
systems. They include oscillatory and circular motions. The
methodology for the study of one-dimensional oscillations can
be easy extended to two-dimensional oscillations. On the other
hand, the study of the rotational motion can be easily extended
to the study of the uniformly accelerated circular motion by
using for example, a rotator disc connected to a hanging body
by means of a pulley. Other sensors such as the light ambient
sensor and the magnetic field sensor can be also integrated to
Physics teaching experiments.
ACKNOWLEDGMENT
The authors would like to thank the Institute of Education
Sciences, Universitat Politècnica de València (Spain), for the
support of the Teaching Innovation Group, MoMa.
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