The application of smartphones to measuring transient structural displacements

Modern smartphones are highly integrated devices that have significant computational power, large memory resources and are equipped with a variety of sensors. This renders them attractive for applications in the field of monitoring, where data are to be recorded, processed, stored, transmitted and visualised. This paper investigates the potential use of such devices for monitoring transient displacements when such devices are attached to a structure. The sensors utilised are accelerometers as well as speaker and microphone audio devices. The paper investigates the accuracy of different measurement methods and describes the advantages and limitations of each strategy. The main focus is on applications for determining natural frequencies of the structure for structural identification purposes. Tilt measurement is another application considered.