ON THE ACCURACY OF ACCELEROMETER SENSORS IN SMARTPHONE-BASED SENSING SYSTEMS
Authors: *Osifeko M.O, Okunfolami I.B, Ade-Ikuesan O.O, Okakwu, I.K, Oyetola, O.K
DOI Info: N/A
ABSTRACT
The recent advancement in mobile phone technology has led to the sophistication of smartphones. Mobile phones are now designed with several state-of-the-art sensors that can be used to acquire data from the environment. However, the validity of such data has been a subject of concern in academic fora due to discrepancies in research findings. Some results revealed that the mobile phone sensors are accurate and can be used to acquire data while others showed that the embedded sensors in mobile phones are not reliable tools for acquiring sensitive real-life data. The inconsistency in findings is the motivation behind this study, in which we juxtapose the effectiveness and accuracy of a smart phone accelerometer sensor with that of a traditional pedometer device. To achieve this, test sequence of 50, 100, 150, 200, 250 steps were performed for 3 days. For the length of 50 steps at medium intensity activity, the distance covered was calculated to be 0.037km. The smart phone accelerometer sensor also got a 50-step result and 0.030km for distance covered from activity carried out while the traditional pedometer device yielded a 44-step count and 0.017km for distance covered. The same evaluation was done at the other step counts. Results show that the step count and distance covered from the smart phone accelerometer sensor was consistent and accurate with the step count and the estimated distance for each step length, while the traditional pedometer device with pendulum sensor did not yield the estimated step count and calculated distance.
Affiliations: Department of Computer and Electrical Engineering, Olabisi Onabanjo University, Nigeria
Keywords: Mobile Sensing, Accelerometer Sensor, Phone Sensing, Pedometer, Step Count
Published date: 2018/06/30
