Mobile

Phones
as as
Mobile
Phones
Sensors
Sensors
Dr Eiman Kanjo

CO2

University of Cambridge Horizon Seminar

Kaetsu Centre, New Hall, Cambridge
ek315@cam.ac.uk
http://www.escience.cam.ac.uk/eiman/
Tuesday 20 March 2007
http://www.escience.cam.ac.uk/mobiledata/

noise

Presentation Overview

Background

Smart phones, Sensors, Positioning technologies

Applications

Health monitoring, Games, Art

Environmental Monitoring

Mobile as Sensor, Participate, Message

Summary

2
Bridging the gap between Mobile phones, Sensors and position technology

Background - Smart Phones

Mobile phones have become ubiquitous within our everyday life.
Modern mobile
Phones are capable of capturing high resolution images and of
recording high quality sounds.
Many are also equipped with a high- resolution color display(352 x
416 pixels screen resolution);
They support different wireless networking standards (GPRS, WIFI,
Bluetooth, )

Background - Smart Phones

and have sufficient memory to run (Up to 2G of external memory
(SD))
There are more powerful operating systems available and the
transfer of standardized programming languages on made mobile
phones the smaller computing platforms.
The number of mobile phones in daily use is growing.
People take their phones everywhere, using them in a variety of
environments and situations to perform a whole range of different
tasks.

Background - Sensors

Sensors are getting small enough to be carried by a bee.

Cheaper
Connectivity
Wireless(e.g. Bluetooth, Zigbee,Wibree)
Wired( e.g. USB,Serial Port)

Background - Location Awareness

Indoor (e.g. Network CellID/ wifi/ bluetooth positioning )
Outdoor(e.g. GPS..)
Cheaper (GPS unit can be as cheap as 19)
Smaller
Ease of use
Integration of GPS in mobile phones (e.g. Nokia N95)
Increase in accuracy

Mobile + Sensor + Location

The advancement in these technologies enables

augmenting mobile phones with sensing
capabilities and location awareness

Sensor

Size
Connectivity
Price

Location

Mobile

Applications

Health Monitoring
Games
Art
Environmental monitoring
- Noise
- Air Pollution

Applications - Health Monitoring

Personal Heart Monitoring System

Personalized heart monitoring application using smart phones
and wireless wearable bio-sensors.
Heart rate, blood pressure, sugar level or physical activity..
GPS for positioning
http://www.alivetec.com/products.htm

Applications - Health Monitoring

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Applications - Health Monitoring

Diabetes Management System

provides wireless transmission of
blood glucose readings to a
central web-based database,
allowing an accurate diary to be
kept.
http://www.alivetec.com/products.htm

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Applications - Games
Heart Rate Map Game
Audiences were able to watch a map of the city being
created live by players who carry a heart rate sensor
Heart characters represents the players are overlayed
onto a real map.
People keep their characters alive by keeping their heart
rates healthy.

http://www.i-am-ai.net/erebedragons/research.htm

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Applications - Games

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Applications - Art
Emotion Maps
The Bio Mapping tool allows the wearer to record their Galvanic
Skin Response (GSR), which is a simple indicator of their
emotions in conjunction with their geographical location.
By sharing and reflecting on this data, it is possible to
construct maps that visualise where we as a community
feel stressed and excited.
http://www.biomapping.net/

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Applications - Art

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Applications - Environmental Monitoring

Noise Monitoring (Mobile as sensor project)
Pollution monitoring (Participate project)
Message: Mobile Environmental Sensing System Across
a Grid Environment

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Mobile As Sensor project

Aim: To develop a mobile phone as sensor for School
children.
3 Secondary School involved
Assistance from the Science teacher.
Collaboration between University of Bath (Psychology),
University of Nottingham (Computer Science) and The
Castle School, Thornbury.

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Brainstorm of ideas: What can be sensed

in the local environment?

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PROTOTYPE IDEAS FROM SESSION 3 16.12.05 THE CASTLE SCHOOL, THORNBURY

GROUIDEA
HOW IT WORKS
1
A sensor to see if your drink has been spiked
A rod sensor is plugged into a socket in your phone
The rod is dipped into your drink
Readings are displayed on the phone
1
A sensor to see if you have been drinking or
A breathing device is plugged into a socket in your phone
taking drugs
You breathe into the device
The phone identifies the drink/drug and displays the reading
in a graph
2
A heat sensor to enable you to see people in
Sensor on the phone (no details given)
their houses when it is dark. The people you
are watching don't know that you can see them
3
A radiation sensor
Sends readings of radiation levels to your phone via
bluetooth
3
A heat sensor attached to the camera on your
The heat sensor allows you to take 'heat pictures' on your
phone
phone
3
Glasses with a bluetooth ear piece attached
The bluetooth ear piece is attached to the arm of the glasses
by your ear
for use with sensors communicating via bluetooth
4
A sensor to measure CO2 and light levels
The sensor readings are displayed on the inside of your
glasses/sunglasses for you to see as you are driving. You
can choose whether you want the information sent to your
phone. Information sent via bluetooth (ear piece attached to
glasses as before). Can also be used with sonar when it is
dark
4
A temperature sensor
The sensor is attached to your phone. You put the sensor on
your tongue to see if you have a temperature
4
A temperature sensor
The sensor is attached to your phone. You dip the sensor into
your drink (e.g. cup of tea) to see if it is cool enough to drink.
You can also programme your 'favourite drinking temperature'
onto your phone to make sure your drink is always at the right
temperature
5
A noise sensor
Antennae attached to your phone measures noise levels around
schools, by the road, in neighbourhoods
6
A sensor on a wristwatch phone to measure
The wristwatch phone has a voice recognition device through
light amongst lots of other things
a head piece to enable users to access their phone menus

WHO IT IS DESIGNED FOR

Public
Police
Public
Police

Police
Secret agents

Public
Public

Public
Public

Students in schools?
Public

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Sound Sensor v1
The sound sensor application turns the mobile phone into a
low- cost data logger for monitoring environmental noise.
It uses the phone's microphone to assess sound levels in
the surrounding environment.

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Sound Sensor v2
The software combines
the sound level data with
the external GPS receiver
data in order to generate a
map of sound levels
encountered during a
journey.

21

Google Earth Screenshot showing the sound level during a

journey from home to work.

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The Aerial map overlay used in this image is Getmapping plc Copyright.

Participate project
Aim : The schools trial aims to bring together different
schools in a series of multi-study pervasive technologysupported science activities..
Partners are BT , Microsoft Research Cambridge, BBC,
Blast Theory, ScienceScope, University of Nottingham
and the University of Bath.
3 years project

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Participate
The first prototype system,
known a MobGeoSen , it
consists of a series of
software components and
off - the - shelf wireless
devices: a GPS receiver
and sensor datalogger
used in conjunction with a
mobile phone.

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25

Participate

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Google Earth Screenshot showing the Carbon Monoxide level during a

journey from school to home. The Aerial map overlay used in this image is Getmapping plc Copyright.
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MESSAGE
Mobile Environmental Sensing System Across a Grid
Environment
EPSRC/Department for Transport funded October
2006-2009
Five institutions led by Imperial College London:
Southampton, Leeds, Newcastle and Cambridge
Universities

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MESSAGE
The impact of road traffic on local air quality and individuals
exposure to air pollution are major public policy concerns.
Research for this requires increasingly detailed knowledge of
how traffic-generated pollution behaves in the urban
environment with factors such as:
street and building design
vehicle braking
accelerating patterns,
individual travelers decisions
local weather conditions
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Cambridge MESSAGE
The University of Cambridges Department for
Applied Mathematics and Theoretical Physics (DAMTP),
Computer Laboratory, Cambridge eScience Centre and
the Department of Chemistry are all involved.
Sponsors

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Cambridge MESSAGE
We're doing research on people's interaction with
pollution in Cambridge.
Cyclists and pedestrians can use mobile phones to
capture and contribute information while walking or riding
in Cambridge, which is then used to build a larger picture
of pollution round the city.

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Which Sensors?
The main Air pollutants in England and Wales are:
Carbon monoxide
Nitrogen dioxide
Sulphur dioxide
Lead
Ground level ozone
Small particles
(Source: The Environment Agency)

Weather (wind direction, temperature..)

Noise
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Prototypes

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35

Summary
Mobile phones provide an opportunity to
monitor local environments in order to detect
and reduce pollution, have medical applications
and be used to tackle other problems on a
societal scale.

36

Thank you
Questions?

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