Demo: Monitoring Movement Dynamics of Robot Cars and Drones Using Smartphone’s Built-in Sensors

In this demo, we present a smart system that can monitor the movement dynamics of any carrying platform (e.g., robot car and drone) leveraging the inertial sensors of the attached smartphone. Through the measured inertial sensor readings, we can monitor the movement dynamics of the carrying platform in real-time, such as the platform’s moving speed, displacement, and position. Unlike Global Positioning System (GPS), which shows severe accuracy degradation when GPS signals are weak (e.g., in indoor or urban environments), our system tracks the platform’s movements and performs positioning without receiving external signals. Thus, our system can be an effective alternative approach to monitor the movement dynamics of those indoor objects (e.g., sweeping robot, indoor drone). Specifically, we exploit the motion-sensing capabilities of smartphone’s inertial sensors to measure the carrying platform’s movement dynamics. The inertial magnetometer of the smartphone allows us to reorient sensors with the cardinal directions; the gyroscope and accelerometer enable measuring the velocity and displacement of the platform. Our experimental results demonstrate that our system can accurately measure the movement dynamics of carrying platform with the easy-to-access smartphone sensors, as a substitution of GPS-based positioning in indoor environments.