CSR: Large: Collaborative Research: CommonSense--A Distributed Mobile System for Socially-Collaborative Environmental Monitoring

Regents Of The University Of Michigan - Ann Arbor, Ann Arbor MI

Investigators

Abstract

Pollution sensing and diagnosis have long been separated from the people most impacted by them. It was conducted by specialists with expensive and scarce equipment. As a result, testing was infrequent and decisions on mitigation were made by central planners with limited access to data. Worse yet, individuals with the ability to dramatically limit dangerous exposure via minor changes in behavior have been left blind to the relationship between their daily actions and exposure to pollution. Advances in computing, sensing, and wireless communication technologies have the potential to allow those most affected by pollution to participate in pollution sensing, rational cost assessment, and mitigation. This project focuses on developing a distributed mobile system for socially-collaborative environmental monitoring, which greatly reduces the problem of environmental sensing data scarcity, supports richer environmental sensing data analysis, and enables better environment awareness and protection via social collaboration. This project will develop a system composed of inexpensive sensing and computation devices purchased by individuals for their own edification and protection. These embedded systems will communicate with each other and aggregate data, enabling multi-sensor localization of pollution sources and quantification of the potential damage by each polluter. By measuring pollution and modeling its impact, it will be possible to associate pollution sources with the costs they impose. Furthermore distributed networking will allow individuals to actively participate in and socially collaborate on environmental monitoring and protection.