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statisticsmeanangledirection

Angular statistics doesn't make sense

I calculated a mean angle of below two angles.

337.477792
324.8119785

I used the formula to calculate a mean angle (see below #Distribution of the mean)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Directional_statistics

What I got was 28.85511475 / -28.8551147. The values don't look right ... Wonder if someone can explain this result for me? Thank you so much!!

Solution

  • The values don't look right

    Angles that differ by 360 are equivalent. So, -28.8551147 == 331.145, which is the arithmetic mean of the two values you provided. If you would like to ensure that your values are always in [0,360), you should add 360 if the values are less than 0.