Madeira Life – Beaconing Internship
A summer internship is available for the Madeira Life project at Lab:USE/Tecnopolo that might be of interest to some of you. Please contact Jos van Leeuwen (josvl@uma.pt) or Ian Oakley (ian@uma.pt) a.s.a.p. if you want to apply.This internship will build a dataset and any required back-end functionality to support location aware applications based on beaconing technology in the city of Funchal. An additional goal is to produce a novel demonstration application which takes advantage of this data on a mobile device. Beaconing technology which should be considered include WiFi access points, GSM cell phone towers and fixed Bluetooth devices. The internship will involve the following activities:
• Technology review: A comprehensive survey of existing beaconing platforms (such as Intel’s PlaceLab and the University of Bath’s CityWare) should take place immediately after the project starts. Similarly, a review of candidate mobile device platforms should be undertaken. A decision should be reached as to the best technology and device to use for the remainder of the internship. It is possible (but unlikely) that the project will conclude that a new back-end technology will be required.
• Warwalking/Wardriving: The availability of beacon data for Funchal should be accessed (for example, no data exists in open forums such as http://www.wigle.net/). If no existing data can be found, a data set of Funchal’s beacons should be gathered manually. This activity should be progressive, commencing with the area in and around the University of Madeira, followed by the city center, then moving to outlying areas as time permits.
• Data integration and Testing: The beacon data-set should be integrated with the technological platform. Experiments designed to capture the accuracy of beacon localization in different areas should be conducted.
• Application design/development: In tandem with these practical back-end activities, one or more demonstration applications should be developed that leverages the beaconing technology. This should support a particular class of users such as university students (at UMa) or tourists (in the city-centre) but is otherwise currently unconstrained.