Participatory Sensing

Participatory Sensing systems leveraging mobile phones offer unprecedented observational capacity at the scale of the individual; at the same time they are remarkably scalable and affordable given the wide proliferation of cellular phone infrastructure and consumer devices that incorporate location services such as GPS, digital imagers, accelerometers, bluetooth access to off-board sensors, and easy programmability. These systems can be leveraged by individuals and communities to address a range of civic concerns, from livability and sustainability to personal and public health. They also offer rich and scalable opportunities for use in K-12 education, particularly as a hands-on and highly relevant tool for exploring computational thinking and data intensive systems. This talk will describe the driving applications and technical challenges.