Learning and Recognizing the Places We Go

Learning and Recognizing the Places We Go, Jeffrey Hightower, Sunny Consolvo, Anthony LaMarca, Ian Smith and Jeff Hughes.

The authors present their work on the problem of moving from location to place (i.e. geocoding, translate a coordinate into a corresponding name). The problem is that geocoded information, like a raw coordinate, does not correspond to someone’s mental model of their personal routine nor to the terminology they use when discussing the places they go.

The application “Beacon-Print” uses WiFi and GSM radio fingerprints collected by someone’s personal mobile device to automatically learn the places they go and then detect when they return to those places. BeaconPrint does not automatically assign names or semantics to places. Rather, it provides the technological foundation to support this task.

Place learning algorithms take as input a sensor log gathered from a mobile device and produce as output a list of the places the device went. The sensor information collected about each of these places is called a waypoint.

Their place learning algorithm is based on fingerprints. Fingerprint waypoints are a “signature” of each place which allows the device to detect when it returns to the place, but provides no direct information about where that place is geographically located.