MobGeoSen: facilitating personal geosensor data collection and visualization using mobile phones

Abstract

Mobile sensing and mapping applications are becoming more prevalent because sensing hardware is becoming more portable and more affordable. However, most of the hardware uses small numbers of fixed sensors that report and share multiple sets of environmental data which raises privacy concerns. Instead, these systems can be decentralized and managed by individuals in their public and private spaces. This paper describes a robust system called MobGeoSens which enables individuals to monitor their local environment (e.g. pollution and temperature) and their private spaces (e.g. activities and health) by using mobile phones in their day to day life.The MobGeoSen is a combination of software components that facilitates the phone's internal sensing devices (e.g. microphone and camera) and external wireless sensors (e.g. data loggers and GPS receivers) for data collection. It also adds a new dimension of spatial localization to the data collection process and provides the user with both textual and spatial cartographic displays. While collecting the data, individuals can interactively add annotations and photos which are automatically added and integrated in the visualization file/log. This makes it easy to visualize the data, photos and annotations on a spatial and temporal visualization tool. In addition, the paper will present ways in which mobile phones can be used as noise sensors using an on-device microphone. Finally, we present our experiences with school children using the above mentioned system to measure their exposure to environmental pollution.

Understanding mass participatory pervasive computing systems for environmental campaigns

“…They also raised other interesting issues, such as how this type of technology could potentially be used for surveillance purposes, with possible implications for personal safety if this type of technology were used inappropriately. However, an almost equally high level of engagement was elicited by the other materials that the pupils had collected, even though these seemed quite bland in comparison to the Google Earth trails, which feedback suggests was because the material was personally significant to them, reflecting their own individual activities [12]. Pupils at one school decided to make posters with the 'lowtech' materials that they had gathered, to record what they had done and display their results.…”

Ubisound: Design a User Generated Model in Ubiquitous Geospatial Information Environment for Sound Mapping

“…Consequently, VGI effectuated a context to capture all kind of pollution data in general and noise pollution in particular, on user location (D'Hondt, 2013;Drosatos, 2014). Kanyo et al (Kanjo et al, 2008) developed MobGeoSen, a mobile phone based system that utilizes different sensors to measure environmental pollution like carbon monoxide level. The app also allows uploading pictures of the places related to the data.…”

“…Pictures and measurement from a user are displayed using Google Earth. Previous works, including (Kanjo et al, 2008), have considered the mobile phone as a platform to chronicle noise exposure. Since all mobile phones are equipped with a microphone, these projects do not suffer from the need to use additional sensors.…”

Optimization Techniques for 3D Graphics Deployment on Mobile Devices

“…This trend can be seen with social networking applications, for example, Facebook is now primarily accessed using mobile devices [11]. The use of mobile devices presents benefits for 3D Internet applications through wireless network access and richer context due to multiple embedded sensors such as a GPS/ GLONASS, an accelerometer, a microphone and a camera [12]. These features of mobile devices enable creation of 3D Internet applications that are not tied to any fixed location, while providing richer interaction with the 3D Internet application itself as well as with the surrounding physical environment [4,13].…”