Demo: Implementation of cooperative bus location system with BLE devices and smartphones

Abstract

This paper demonstrates a new cooperative bus location system with BLE (Bluetooth Low Energy) devices and smartphones. Our idea has extended common participatory sensing systems to realize more practical sensing systems because common participatory sensing mechanisms require a participants' operation to measure some values. Our proposed system consists of a BLE devices on a bus, smartphone applications on a participants' smartphone, and a cloud service. The BLE device has a GPS (Global Positioning System) receiver and a communication function based on the BLE specification. The BLE device also activates a neighbor smartphone application by transmitting a special beacon message. Hence, the smartphone application can work and obtain the bus location from BLE device even if it was a suspended status. Additionally, it also uploads the bus location to the cloud service automatically. As a result, the proposed system can collect a bus location from BLE devices through smartphones automatically. The demonstration shows a prototype system based on the proposed idea for a bus location system.