Measuring the acceleration due to gravity using an IR transceiver

In this paper, we present a new technique to study the dynamics of a free-falling object in a lab setting and to measure the acceleration due to gravity g using a simple and economic setup. The precise measurement of time taken for an object to fall freely passing an infrared (IR) transceiver is utilized to deduce the acceleration due to gravity. The reflected IR intensity from a free-falling 0.19 m rod of equally spaced white stripes of 0.01 m is detected and sent to a digital oscilloscope to observe and record the falling time period of each stripe. By fitting recorded elapsed falling times to the well-known quadratic equation of motion under constant acceleration, an accurate value of the acceleration due to gravity of g = 9.8092 ± 0.0384 m s⁻² is obtained. In addition to its accuracy, the proposed technique is safer and more economic than most of the other currently used setups to determine g in undergraduate teaching labs. This study may provide undergraduate lab instructors with an efficient teaching technique for a traditional classroom experiment. (paper)