Detecting Transportation Activities using Contact Vibration Sensor

In this project, we present the design of SpiderWalk on smartphones to detect transportation activity. Our system detects not only the activity but also its circumstances (e.g., road surface, vehicle, and shoe types) to provide better support for applications such as activity logging, location tracking, and smart persuasive applications. We use an ultra-sensitive, contact vibration sensor which mimics the spiders’ sensory slit organs. Experiments show that our system detects transportation activities with an accuracy of 92.3% with overheads comparable to existing audio and GPS-based systems.

This work appears in UbiComp 2018.