Mobile Sensing -- Summer semester 2015

Mobile devices, like mobile phones, tablet and laptop computers, or even automobiles, can nowadays be seen as general-purpose computing and sensing platforms. Mobile devices can also seamlessly interact with each other using widely available communication infrastructures, like the mobile phone network or the Internet. The sensors available on these devices enable monitoring a plethora of interesting phenomena: the crowdedness of a place (e.g., measuring local density of Bluetooth devices), the type of vehicle on which they may be traveling (e.g., using the accelerometer embedded in mobile phones), or the risk that ice is being forming on a road (e.g., using sensor data from traveling cars). A mobile sensing system is a collection of mobile devices, whose computing, sensing, and communication capabilities enable the realization of different applications and services. The first goal of this lecture is to offer an overview of the set of applications enabled by mobile sensing systems. Further, the course will review the most relevant enabling technologies, including hardware platforms and programming platforms and tools. The course will also discuss the most relevant issues related to data collection in mobile sensing systems, including data reliability and availability and the definition of adequate methods for data acquisition and analysis. Last but not least, the course will include an Android programming course, with both dedicated "theoretical" lectures as well as hands-on tutorials and exercises. In this context, students will be required to implement an Android-based mobile sensing application. For development and test purposes, real hardware platforms (e.g., Nexus Galaxy smartphones) will be made available to the students during the semester.