Locational wireless and social media-based surveillance

The number of smartphones and tablets as well as the volume of traffic generated by these devices has been growing constantly over the past decade and this growth is predicted to continue at an increasing rate over the next five years. Numerous native features built into contemporary smart devices enable highly accurate digital fingerprinting techniques. Furthermore, software developers have been taking advantage of locational capabilities of these devices by building applications and social media services that enable convenient sharing of information tied to geographical locations. Mass online sharing resulted in a large volume of locational and personal data being publicly available for extraction. A number of researchers have used this opportunity to design and build tools for a variety of uses – both respectable and nefarious. Furthermore, due to the peculiarities of the IEEE 802.11 specification, wireless-enabled smart devices disclose a number of attributes, which can be observed via passive monitoring. These attributes coupled with the information that can be extracted using social media APIs present an opportunity for research into locational surveillance, device fingerprinting and device user identification techniques. This paper presents an in-progress research study and details the findings to date

A Smartphone-Based System for Outdoor Data Gathering Using a Wireless Beacon Network and GPS Data: From Cyber Spaces to Senseable Spaces

Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) and mobile devices are deeply influencing all facets of life, directly affecting the way people experience space and time. ICTs are also tools for supporting urban development, and they have also been adopted as equipment for furnishing public spaces. Hence, ICTs have created a new paradigm of hybrid space that can be defined as Senseable Spaces. Even if there are relevant cases where the adoption of ICT has made the use of public open spaces more “smart”, the interrelation and the recognition of added value need to be further developed. This is one of the motivations for the research presented in this paper. The main goal of the work reported here is the deployment of a system composed of three different connected elements (a real-world infrastructure, a data gathering system, and a data processing and analysis platform) for analysis of human behavior in the open space of Cardeto Park, in Ancona, Italy. For this purpose, and because of the complexity of this task, several actions have been carried out: the deployment of a complete real-world infrastructure in Cardeto Park, the implementation of an ad-hoc smartphone application for the gathering of participants’ data, and the development of a data pre-processing and analysis system for dealing with all the gathered data. A detailed description of these three aspects and the way in which they are connected to create a unique system is the main focus of this paper.This work has been supported by the Cost Action TU1306, called CYBERPARKS: Fostering knowledge about the relationship between Information and Communication Technologies and Public Spaces supported by strategies to improve their use and attractiveness, the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness under the ESPHIA project (ref. TIN2014-56042-JIN) and the TARSIUS project (ref. TIN2015-71564-C4-4-R), and the Basque Country Department of Education under the BLUE project (ref. PI-2016-0010). The authors would also like to thank the staff of UbiSive s.r.l. for the support in developing the application

A Survey of Positioning Systems Using Visible LED Lights

© 2018 IEEE. Personal use of this material is permitted. Permission from IEEE must be obtained for all other uses, in any current or future media, including reprinting/republishing this material for advertising or promotional purposes, creating new collective works, for resale or redistribution to servers or lists, or reuse of any copyrighted component of this work in other works.As Global Positioning System (GPS) cannot provide satisfying performance in indoor environments, indoor positioning technology, which utilizes indoor wireless signals instead of GPS signals, has grown rapidly in recent years. Meanwhile, visible light communication (VLC) using light devices such as light emitting diodes (LEDs) has been deemed to be a promising candidate in the heterogeneous wireless networks that may collaborate with radio frequencies (RF) wireless networks. In particular, light-fidelity has a great potential for deployment in future indoor environments because of its high throughput and security advantages. This paper provides a comprehensive study of a novel positioning technology based on visible white LED lights, which has attracted much attention from both academia and industry. The essential characteristics and principles of this system are deeply discussed, and relevant positioning algorithms and designs are classified and elaborated. This paper undertakes a thorough investigation into current LED-based indoor positioning systems and compares their performance through many aspects, such as test environment, accuracy, and cost. It presents indoor hybrid positioning systems among VLC and other systems (e.g., inertial sensors and RF systems). We also review and classify outdoor VLC positioning applications for the first time. Finally, this paper surveys major advances as well as open issues, challenges, and future research directions in VLC positioning systems.Peer reviewe

Robot swarming applications

This paper discusses the different modes of operation of a swarm of robots: (i) non-communicative swarming, (ii) communicative swarming, (iii) networking, (iv) olfactory-based navigation and (v) assistive swarming. I briefly present the state of the art in swarming and outline the major techniques applied for each mode of operation and discuss the related problems and expected results

Antennas and Propagation of Implanted RFIDs for Pervasive Healthcare Applications

© 2010 IEEE. Personal use of this material is permitted. Permission from IEEE must be obtained for all other users, including reprinting/republishing this material for advertising or promotional purposes, creating new collective works for resale or redistribution to servers or lists, or reuse of any copyrighted components of this work in other works.This post-acceptance version of the paper is essentially complete, but may differ from the official copy of record, which can be found at the following web location (subscription required to access full paper): http://dx.doi.org/10.1109/JPROC.2010.205101

How would tourists use Green Spaces? Case Studies in Lisbon

EntretextosThis report provides in a relative condensed format the results of small-scale study undertaken in Lisbon during the Meeting of the CyberParks Project (www.cost.eu/COST_Actions/tud/Actions/TU1306). CyberParks is a COST Action coordinated by the Universidade Lusófona at the CeiED - Interdisciplinary Research Centre for Education and Development. The Project aims at creating a research platform on the relationship between Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) and the production of public open spaces, and their relevance to sustainable urban development. The impacts of this relationship are being explored from social, ecological, urban design and technological perspectives. Based on the supposition that the participants of the Meeting are tourists visiting Lisbon, a survey was carried out on the topic how people actually use and how they would use public spaces. This survey is also the first approach to the case study areas chosen in Lisbon: Parque Quinta das Conchas and Jardim da Estrela. Both green spaces will be subject of further studies in the forthcoming years. This study employed (1) a questionnaire for measuring the user’s experience and preferences, and (2) two different tracking devices that utilise GNSS (Global Navigation Satellite Systems), in our case the GPS for satellite positioning technologies. It also presents the results of a study on the relevance of wi-fi in Lisbon’s public spaces. Even considering that the surveys in Lisbon’s green spaces are a first exercise within the work programme of CyberParks they show important outcomes. On the one hand, regarding the technologies used and their potential for research and on the other hand the findings about Lisbon’s green spaces. It should be noted that the conducted surveys and the gathered data are statistically not representative, but can be characterised as an empirical case and as a showcase, as how tourists tend to use a green space. The results shows that surveys benefit from multiple research methods and from combining insights.Este relatório apresenta, em formato condensado, os resultados de um estudo de pequena escala realizado em Lisboa durante o Seminário do Projeto CyberParks. CyberParks é uma Ação COST coordenada pela Universidade Lusófona/CeiED - Centro de Estudos Interdisciplinares em Educação e Desenvolvimento. O projeto visa a criação de uma plataforma de debate sobre a relação entre as Tecnologias de Informação e Comunicação (TIC) e a produção de espaços públicos, e da sua relevância para o desenvolvimento urbano sustentável. Os impactos dessa relação estão a ser explorados a partir de perspetivas sociais, ecológicas, tecnológicas e de desenho urbano. Na sua etapa exploratória, este estudo assenta na suposição de que os participantes do Seminário são turistas de visita a Lisboa. A partir dos dados recolhidos pelos investigadores envolvidos na ação COST, foi realizada uma análise à forma como diferentes indivíduos usam, e como poderão usar, diferentes espaços públicos verdes. Este estudo apresenta, portanto, a primeira abordagem às áreas de estudos selecionadas em Lisboa. São elas o Parque Quinta das Conchas e o Jardim da Estrela. Ambos os espaços verdes serão objeto de novos estudos nos próximos anos. Neste primeiro estudo exploratório foram empregues: (1) um questionário, para aferir a experiência de um potencial utilizador e as suas preferências, e (2) dois dispositivos diferentes de rastreamento que utilizam tecnologia GNSS (Sistemas de Navegação Global por Satélite) e, no nosso caso, o GPS para as tecnologias de posicionamento por satélite. Ele também apresenta os resultados de um estudo realizado sobre a relevância do wi-fi em espaços públicos na cidade de Lisboa. Mesmo considerando que os estudos realizados nos espaços verdes representam um primeiro exercício no âmbito do programa de trabalho do CyberParks em Lisboa, são aqui revelados resultados importantes. Por um lado, o recurso às tecnologias utilizadas e seu potencial para a investigação e, por outro lado, os resultados sobre a vivência dos espaços verdes. Deve-se notar que os dados recolhidos não são estatisticamente representativos, mas evidenciam um caso empírico de como turistas tendem a usar um espaço verde urbano. A combinação do questionário com novos métodos digitais resultou num grande ganho de conhecimento, recobrindo as áreas de estudo sob a perspetiva de um turista, para além de maiores informações sobre as potencialidades e limites da tecnologia digital como ferramenta de investigação. Os resultados mostram que a investigação no campo social pode se beneficiar da combinação de vários métodos e técnicas

Navigating MazeMap: indoor human mobility, spatio-logical ties and future potential

Global navigation systems and location-based services have found their way into our daily lives. Recently, indoor positioning techniques have also been proposed, and there are several live or trial systems already operating. In this paper, we present insights from MazeMap, the first live indoor/outdoor positioning and navigation system deployed at a large university campus in Norway. Our main contribution is a measurement case study; we show the spatial and temporal distribution of MazeMap geo-location and wayfinding requests, construct the aggregated human mobility map of the campus and find strong logical ties between different locations. On one hand, our findings are specific to the venue; on the other hand, the nature of available data and insights coupled with our discussion on potential usage scenarios for indoor positioning and location-based services predict a successful future for these systems and applications.Comment: 6 pages, accepted at PerMoby Workshop at IEEE PerCom 201