Feasibility of Using Data From Sensors Embedded in Smartphones to Measure Angles and Distances

Abstract

Smartphones have become communication and information retrieval tools, but as part of their functionality they also contain a variety of sensors to determine their orientation and location. This research aims to evaluate the capacity of the embedded sensors: gyroscope, accelerometer and magnetometer, and the camera sensor, with the purpose of indirectly determining values of angles and distances, basic elements for the determination of positions by positioning techniques. The tests consisted of measuring some points in an internal environment and in an external environment. These were collected using a total station and with the application developed for comparison purposes. The results showed that, for the distances evaluated, the differences obtained between the data measured by the total station and by the application were a maximum of 1.54 meters and a minimum of 0.09 m. The measurements of the vertical angles showed, on average, approximately 2.09 degrees of discrepancies between the data compared to the total station data. The horizontal angles showed the greatest differences between the values measured with the application and the total station, which ranged from 4.83° to 69.32° evaluated indoors. These observed discrepancies increased with the increase of the measured and calculated angle, thus verifying a problem mainly in relation to the determination of the horizontal angles.

Keywords

• App
• Smartphone Sensors
• Determining angles and distances.