Long-term monitoring of human mobility on smartphones

Summary form only given. Contemporary smartphones are capable of providing rich and detailed information about human mobility. The localization capabilities of the devices enable us to obtain information about the places people visit and the routes they take, whereas other sensing capabilities can provide information, e.g., about the people they travel with and the transportation means they use. Typically, the more detailed the information the mobility monitoring provides, the higher its energy cost is, making the design of energy-efficient mechanisms for monitoring human mobility an important challenge. This talk consists of two parts. In the first part, we introduce some of our previous work on energy-efficient monitoring of different facets of human mobility. These include energy-efficient designs for monitoring user position, trajectories, and transportation modes. In the second part of the talk, we discuss the interrelationships between different energy-efficient monitoring mechanisms and the resulting accuracy of the mobility monitoring. Specifically, we demonstrate how designs focused on reducing the energy cost of monitoring a specific aspect of mobility can significantly decrease the accuracy of the monitoring of other aspects. Based on our discussion, we conclude by arguing for a need for comprehensive designs to mobility monitoring that simultaneously addresses different aspects of human mobility.