This disclosure is directed to the use of mobile device sensors and more particularly to the virtualization of mobile device sensors.
Mobile devices are becoming increasingly complex and are regarded as first-class citizens in the landscape of computing. Devices contain increasingly sophisticated onboard sensors which allow for complex application features.
Current implementations of mobile technology require applications to exclusively use sensors that are housed onboard the current device. This has the advantage of increased security for the application operating environment. However this requires that all peer/neighboring mobile devices be treated as foreign. This implementation of design results in the lack of efficient use of mobile computing resources.
One system has been proposed whereby many mobile devices collectively measure environmental data. The proposed system describes particular hardware extensions to enable more sensing capabilities.
In another proposed system, the sensors from many mobile devices worldwide are used to sample a required region. The proposed system has a layer of static virtual sensor nodes corresponding to the sampled data locations.
There are current techniques that allow for the transfer of data between peer devices. Examples include Airdrop® functionality between iOS® devices, Bluetooth® connectivity between enabled mobile devices and peer-to-peer transfer of data over WiFi. However, these approaches all employ onboard sensors to facilitate the transfer of information.
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