FST Graduate Research Topic

Research Topic: Using Sensors for Personalization in Mobile Computing - GPS and Accelerometers (essay/project/thesis)
Suggested By: Sabine Graf
Last Update: August 13th, 2010

[This topic can be selected as an essay, project, or thesis] This project deals with identifying the context of a situation of a mobile user based on data gathered from a GPS sensor and accelerometer in the user?s mobile device. The data from these sensors should be used to identifying a user?s current situation and the context of this situation. Examples include to identify whether a person is moving or at one particular place, how fast a person is moving which again can give indications about whether a person is walking or driving etc. Once such information has been identified, a simple adaptive module should be provided that demonstrates the usefulness of this information in a mobile learning scenario (e.g., suggesting particular types of learning objects in particular situations). The first part of this project will be a literature review about user modelling and personalization in mobile computing through usage of GPS sensors and accelerometers as well as its application in mobile learning. The second part will deal with developing a framework that shows what information about the user?s current situation can be modeled/identified through GPS sensors and accelerometers. The third part will deal with selecting the most relevant types of information that can be gathered through GPS sensors and accelerometers for the application in mobile learning. Then a mechanism will be implemented that is able to gather data from GPS sensors and accelerometers from a mobile device and uses these data for calculating information about the context of a user?s situation. Such calculation might require more complex algorithms such as Artificial Intelligence algorithms that are able to learn the correct identification of data. As a result, the developed service/system will store the gathered information in a database. The service/system will be developed as independent service in a general way so that it can be used in different settings. The service/system will be evaluated through proof of concept evaluation. The fourth part of this project will deal with demonstrating the usefulness of the developed service in an educational scenario through developing a simple adaptive service that reads the gathered information from the database and provides personalized suggestions to mobile learners based on their current context and situation. This project might require communication/arrangements with another master student who will work on a similar topic. Requirements: *) Interest in the topic *) Good programming skills *) Understanding of mobile technologies and artificial intelligence techniques