Multimodal Co-Presence Detection with Varying Spatio-Temporal Granularity

Pervasive computing environments are characterized by a plethora of sensing and communication-enabled devices that diffuse themselves among different users. Built-in sensors and telecommunication infrastructure allow co-presence detection. In turn, co-presence detection enables context-aware applications, like those for social networking among close-by users, and for modeling human behavior. We aim to support developers building better context-aware applications by a deepened understanding of which set of context information is appropriate for co-presence detection. We have gathered a multimodal dataset for proximity sensing, including several proximity verification sets, like Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, and GSM encounters, to be able to associate sensor's data with a spatial granularity. We show that sensor modalities are suitable to recognize the spatial adjacency of users with different spatio-temporal granularity. We find that individual user mobility has only a minor, negligible effect on co-presence detection. In contrast, the heterogeneity of device's sensor hardware has a major negative impact on co-presence detection. To reveal energy pitfalls with respect to usability, we perform an energy analysis pertaining to the usage stemming from different sensors for co-presence detection.