Low-cost ultrasonic distance measurement in a mechanical resonance experiment

Abstract

We present a low-cost, dual-probe position sensor in a mechanical resonance experiment suitable for deployment in large lab courses with multiple stations. The motion of the two ends of a driven, damped spring oscillator is recorded with US-100 ultrasonic distance sensors and ESP8266 microcontrollers. Sensor lag is compensated via a modified Savitzky-Golay filter. Data is downloaded to a computer via Wi-Fi in a format suitable for analysis in Logger Pro. Due to the simple and fast data acquisition process, students can gather sufficient data to plot curves of the amplitude and phase lag as a function of driving frequency.