Nericell: using mobile smartphones for rich monitoring of road and traffic conditions

Abstract

We consider the problem of monitoring road and traffic conditions in a city. Prior work in this area has required the deployment of dedicated sensors on vehicles and/or on the roadside, or the tracking of mobile phones by service providers. Furthermore, prior work has largely focused on the developed world, with its relatively simple traffic flow patterns. In fact, traffic flow in cities of the developing regions, which comprise much of the world, tends to be much more complex owing to varied road conditions (e.g., potholed roads), chaotic traffic (e.g., a lot of braking and honking), and a heterogeneous mix of vehicles (2-wheelers, 3-wheelers, cars, buses, etc.).To monitor road and traffic conditions in such a setting, we present Nericell, a system that performs rich sensing by piggybacking on smartphones that users carry around with them. In this demo, we show the use of accelerometer to detect bumps and braking. We also use the microphone to enable honk detection. Nericell addresses several challenges including virtually reorienting the accelerometer on a phone that is at an arbitrary orientation, and performing honk detection and localization in an energy efficient manner.