Cows, buses, people: Context awareness sensing from positioning sensors for improved safety, efficiency and performance

The ability to determine a user's content is important to developing applications which can adapt to the user's need and requirements both in the short term and long term. With the increasing availability of low cost wireless sensors, it is possible to capture a range of observations which can be used for context determination. This also means that the user being monitored is not limited to human subjects alone. This paper will highlight work from three different applications which utilize context awareness sensing. The first project deals with the monitoring of cows for milk production and welfare using UltraWide Band (UWB) technology and inertia sensors. The second investigates indoor positioning for the blind and partially sighted using smart phone sensors. The third looks at monitoring public transport demand and traffic capacity based on GPS and door event sensors on London buses. The tests show some of the strengths and limitations of the sensors and the need for data pre-processing. Using the UWB sensors the mounting activity related to estrus could be detected and the activity or context of the cow determined appropriately. It showed the benefits of context awareness sensing in these different applications.