Quadcopters, or drones, have come into wide use recently for a variety of applications including video inspection of otherwise inaccessible areas, real estate sales, and entertainment. Students are interested in them and in some cases own their own. The combination of high mobility, relatively low price, and autonomous operation is quite…

We measure the vertical velocities of elevators, pedestrians climbing stairs, and drones (flying unmanned aerial vehicles), by means of smartphone pressure sensors. The barometric pressure obtained with the smartphone is related to the altitude of the device via the hydrostatic approximation. From the altitude values, vertical velocities are…