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Date:23rd May 2012
Smart sensors from Libelium can detect
iPhone and Android devices in real time
The new sensing technology designed by Libelium is able
to detect any Smartphone in the area by measuring Wifi and
Bluetooth activity; allowing to know in real time people
and vehicle presence and fluency.
Detecting how many people or vehicles are in a certain
place is a difficult task that in the past has been addressed
by using expensive and limited video camera image analysis;
now with the Smartphone expansion everybody has a mobile
device with Wifi or Bluetooth radios on it, and these wireless
interfaces can be detected with the new sensing technology
developed by Libelium and integrated inside Meshlium Xtreme
-the company's multiprotocol router- .
Applications of this new technology go from street activity
measurement to vehicle traffic management. Now it is possible
to monitor the number of people passing daily in a street,
the average time of the stance at landmarks, like shopping
windows, and even differentiate between residents (daily
matches) and visitants (sporadic matches).
"This new technology allows to detect both iPhone
and Android devices without the need of a specific application
installed on them" explains Libelium's CTO, David Gascón.
"Meshlium Xtreme detects the "hello!" messages
periodically sent by the Smartphones without the need of
user interaction and always ensuring their privacy, since
these messages do not identify their owners" he adds.
Regarding vehicle traffic monitoring the system lets know
in real time the flow of traffic in highways and roads,
monitoring also the average time of vehicle stance for traffic
congestion prevention. With this information, automatic
diversion messages can be delivered to drivers.
Information collected from each mobile phone contains a
unique identification address (MAC) -that allows to unequivocally
identify the Smartphone-, the quality of the signal (RSSI)
-which gives the distance the user is from our scanning
point- and the Class of Device and Vendor which allow us
to differentiate among pedestrians and vehicles. The anonymous
nature of this technique is due to the use of MAC addresses
as identifiers which are not associated with any specific
user account or mobile phone number not even to any specific
vehicle.
The new Smartphone detection capability is integrated in
Meshlium Xtreme - the wireless sensor network gateway designed
by Libelium - which may also be acquired with ZigBee and
3G connectivity options for the interaction with autonomous
sensors nodes to provide complete services to Smart Cities.
More info is at: http://www.libelium.com/smartphones_iphone_android_detection
Author: Srinivasa Reddy N
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