LocationInformation

Abstract

Someone in Apeldoorn, the Netherlands has set up a small network of five Bluetooth sensors. The sensors are placed in different locations in the city , as said on the projects homepage “with friends and family”, to keep it a low budget project. Each location has a simple USB Bluetooth adaptor connected to the internet. All the information is then stored in one location in a database. The sensor will pick up mobile devices with Bluetooth turned on. They are identified by a unique MAC address. Through the network of sensors within Apeldoorn it is then possible to roughly track individual devices. The amount of data collected from just five locations is quite a lot. Within the first four weeks the network registered 15,000 unique devices. As it occurs, some devices are picked up by two or more sensors and therefore reveal information about movement within Apeldoorn of individual devices. Data from one sensor over a period of time reveals a picture of the usage pattern of the area it covers. An example from the project homepage at bluetoothtracking.org.