Simple pendulum analysis — A vision based approach

A Simple Pendulum is a piece of mass attached to a thread and supported rigidly from one end. Simple pendulum experiment is mainly carried out for calculating the time period of an oscillation, when there is a change in the amplitude. This can also be used for calculating various physical properties of the bob. In this paper we propose an efficient image processing methodology to detect, track and estimate, properties of the bob. Proposed methodology uses Lukas-Kanade's optical flow and blob library for tracking and calculating the properties of the bob. Experiment is also carried out physically in the lab environment and the same properties are extracted from the bob. Results obtained using image processing techniques are found to coincide with the results obtained by physical calculations and are clearly explained in this paper.