Sensing as a Service: Challenges, Solutions and Future Directions

Sensors on (or attached to) mobile phones can enable attractive sensing applications in different domains, such as environmental monitoring, social networking, healthcare, transportation, etc. A new concept of sensing as a service (S 2 aaS) is introduced for providing sensing services using mobile phones via a cloud computing system. An S 2 aaS cloud needs to meet the following requirements: 1) it must be able to support various mobile phone sensing applications on different smartphone platforms; 2) it must be energy-efficient; and 3) it must have effective incentive mechanisms that can be used to attract mobile users to participate in sensing activities. Unique challenges of designing and implementing an S 2 aaS cloud are investigated, existing systems and methods are reviewed and future research directions are discussed.