An Energy Efficient Framework for Localization and Coverage in Participatory Urban Sensing

Participatory sensing is an approach to data collection where individuals use their smartphones to capture different scenarios, and upload to a server to create knowledge. A fundamental issue in such data collection process is the coverage of the collected data that reflects how well the targeted area is monitored. To ensure coverage requirements, the traditional approaches require the server to know the location of the participating mobile devices that takes significant amount of energy. In this paper, we propose a novel framework called PLUS for data collection in participatory sensing ensuring partial coverage, where a mobile device does not send location updates to the server. We also propose an energy efficient localization scheme called sLoc, designed for a mobile device to participate in the data collection process with PLUS. Finally, simulating a continuous monitoring application, we show that PLUS can save significant amount of energy, as compared to traditional approaches.