Ultrasonic Sensors and Arduino in Kinematics Lab Experiences

Abstract

Arduino is a popular, easy-to-use, automatic control platform with a wide range of peripherals in a growing market that gives it a relatively low cost, which has allowed the development of a large amount of free educational support material able on the Web. An ultrasonic sensor was developed with which the measurement of the distance to an obstacle is immediate and acceptably accurate. This sensor is controlled through a small Arduino board. The application developed records the distance of the obstacle closest to the sensor and the detection time. With this information the application calculates the speed at which the obstacle moves relative to the sensor. The data is optionally sent to a screen for immediate visual monitoring, or a file is created in a format that can be opened and processed from symbolic algebraical systems or any Spreadsheet.