SoundOfTheCity

Continuous Noise Monitoring for a Healthy City

SENAmI 2013Lukas Ruge, Bashar Altakrouri,

Andreas Schraderruge@itm.uni-luebeck.de

Institut of Telematics | Ambient Computing Working GroupSoundOfTheCity

Overview

• The problem of noise• The SoundOfTheCity application• Using context in continuous noise measuring• Conclusion

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Noise

• Among the leading causes for illness in urban areas

– Stress – Poor sleep– Reduced life quality– Increased risk for hypertension– Hearing loss – Lower cognitive performance

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Noise Maps

http://www.acoustics.org/press/155th/kaliskisfcagif.jpg

Governments are using Noise-Exposure-Maps to understand the extend of the Problem.

• Calculated• Missing areas• Every few years• Selective sources• Expensive• Commonplace in

the EU, less in theUS

Institut of Telematics | Ambient Computing Working GroupSoundOfTheCity

SoundOfTheCity – The Smart City Approach

• Use available technology– Smart phone as sensor.

• Involve citizens– Everybody can measure.

• Collect and publish data– Make information available.

• Empower citizens– Make government agencies

react.

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SoundOfTheCity – Architecture

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SoundOfTheCity - Application

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SoundOfTheCity - Application

Noise Map Sound Map Dosimeter

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SoundOfTheCity – The Noise Map

Visualizing community exposure

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SoundOfTheCity – The Dosimeter

• Measure and visualize how a user is exposed to noise

• Generate personal benefit

• Provide an understanding of the personal exposure

• Provides risk assessment

Institut of Telematics | Ambient Computing Working GroupSoundOfTheCity

SoundOfTheCity – The Sound Map

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SoundOfTheCity – The Sound Map

• The Sound Map provides a dimension that is more easily accessible.

• It allows to capture the experience.• Creating Records

– Video– Sound– Picture– Text

• Augment the information conveyed by the sensor data

Institut of Telematics | Ambient Computing Working GroupSoundOfTheCity

Measuring With Mobile Phones

x dBSPL = 20 log10 (p/p0) dBSPL

SoundOfTheCity is measuring continuous and unobtrusive.Problems:

Handling (hands, pockets, bags)Protective casesWind

Institut of Telematics | Ambient Computing Working GroupSoundOfTheCity

Context Awareness

• Using context can help reduce the amount of distorted measurements and reduce energy consumption

• SoundOfTheCity is supposed to visualize noise that is relevant to the community there are possibilities of exclusion– Phone is in the pocket– User is indoors– User is traveling at high speed

• The measurements are still used to evaluate personal exposure

Institut of Telematics | Ambient Computing Working GroupSoundOfTheCity

Context Awareness

• Is the proximity sensor is evaluating to “true” (Pocket)– Turn of GPS and don’t send noise levels

• Wifi is connected (Indoors)– Turn of GPS and don’t send noise levels

• If GPS-Location has low accuracy (Indoors)– Don’t send noise levels

• If the user is moving at high speed (cars, trains)– Don’t send noise levels

• If the phone has not moved for several minutes– Don’t send noise levels, reduce GPS rate

Institut of Telematics | Ambient Computing Working GroupSoundOfTheCity

Mobile Phones Microphones

The data we get from the microphones is itself already inaccurate.

dB(A)

Hz

Institut of Telematics | Ambient Computing Working GroupSoundOfTheCity

Related Work

• Several projects have attempted to measure noise with mobile phone microphones

• Two systems work on Android– WideNoise [Agr, Casali, Brancotti. 2012]– NoiseTube [Maisonneuve, Stevens, Ochab. 2010]

• NoiseTube: Calibration via profiles for specific phone types

Institut of Telematics | Ambient Computing Working GroupSoundOfTheCity

9 Requirementsfor Pollution Monitoring Systems for Health1. Personal Exposure2. Community Exposure3. Risk Assesment4. Experience Capture5. Continuity6. Energy Awareness*

7. Correctness*

8. Unobstrusiveness*

9. Context Awareness* * Santini, Ostermaier and Adelmann, On the use of sensor nodes and mobile phones for the assessment of noise pollution levels in urban environments (2009)

Institut of Telematics | Ambient Computing Working GroupSoundOfTheCity

Thank You

We would love if you join us in measuring noise exposure: SoundOfTheCity is avaliable on Goolge Play!

You can also check out the source code at https://bitbucket.org/TVLuke/soundofthecity

http://citysound.itm.uni-luebeck.de

Institut of Telematics | Ambient Computing Working GroupSoundOfTheCity

SoundOfTheCity – Open API

• SoundOfThe City provides a REST-API– Noise Level Data– Sound Samples

• You can register applications to provide data to our servers

• Additionally the code for SoundOfTheCity is available on bitbucket

• Open API to get noise levels and sound samples

Institut of Telematics | Ambient Computing Working GroupSoundOfTheCity

Stats

Noise measurements 186,564*

Sound samples 238

Downloads from the website 400

Downloads on Google Play ~ 15

Active users 14

Institut of Telematics | Ambient Computing Working GroupSoundOfTheCity

Stats