Grant: Idea to Innovation

Modern GPS- (Global Positioning System) enabled cellular phones and advances in geomatics offer considerable new opportunities for tracking humans and supporting Location-Based Services (LBS). These technologies can be used to wirelessly transmit a person's location to a central server for storage and display. Research has shown that the resulting data can provide a highly accurate trace of personal or vehicular movements over a day or longer. Over the past five years the applicant has pioneered development of a patent-pending system for processing this data to automatically detect human activities and a wide range of their attributes. This includes detection of stationary activities by start/end time and location (geo-coordinates and even building names), movements, trips and physical activity (walking, running, biking, driving), and environmental attributes (indoors, outdoors, natural environments, highways, etc.). The proposed project involves six key technical enhancements to this system in support commercialization opportunities in three key sectors: Healthcare and elderly activity living facilities, Weight-loss and wellbeing, and location-based services (LBS). Moving to the wider commercial market requires enhancement in the core activity detection algorithm, reduction of the power consumption associated with all-day GPS tracking, and improved data security and privacy protection measures. This proposal outlines a clear solution to this, utilizing accelerometer devices embedded in the latest Smartphones, and industry leading data security and privacy best-practices. These developments will be integrated into existing BlackBerry and browser-based display interfaces, forming prototype products to be pilot tested in an elderly care facility and weight-loss clinic. The Wilfrid Laurier University technology transfer office and the Innovations Group at the University of Toronto, plus four other supporting industry partners, are poised to support these developments.