How to find the smoothness of these results?

I have a set of measurements of acceleration (in x, y, z direction).

I am supposed to be finding the indicator of the signal to show how smooth it is (jerk metric).

But i don`t know how to do it.

i understand that i have to use differentiation, to get the derivative of data ( i dont know if i have to differentiate the acceleration values).

Could someone help me to get some ideas?

Thank you

[John D'Errico]

Jerk is a term sometimes used to describe the third derivative, thus the derivative of acceleration. If you have acceleration versus time, then cmpute the derivative.

Answer 1

[Jan]

Acceleration = rand(1, 1000);  % Test data
Jerk         = gradient(Acceleration);

This replies the two sided quotient of differences as 2nd order approximation of the derivative.