WiFiScout: A Crowdsensing WiFi Advisory System with Gamification-based Incentive

TL;DR

WiFiScout is a crowdsensing system that uses gamification to motivate users to share WiFi hotspot quality data, helping smartphone users find good WiFi spots in smart cities.

Contribution

It introduces a novel gamification-based incentive scheme for crowdsensing WiFi quality data collection in urban environments.

Findings

System successfully implemented on Android

Collected city-wide WiFi quality data from real users

Gamification increased user participation

Abstract

As mobile crowdsensing techniques are steering many smart-city applications, an incentive scheme that motivates the crowd to actively participate becomes a key to the success of such city-scale applications. This paper presents a crowdsensing WiFi advisory system called WiFiScout, which helps smartphone users to find good quality WiFi hotspots. The quality information is defined in terms of user experience and hence the system requires users to contribute information of their experience with WiFi hotspots. To motivate people to contribute such information, we design and implement a gamification-based incentive scheme in WiFiScout. It allows a user to "conquer WiFi territories" by becoming the top contributor for WiFi hotspots at different locations. The contribution is based on the diversity and amount of data a user submits, for which he will be rewarded accordingly. WiFiScout has been implemented on Android and it facilitates the collection of city-wide WiFi advisory information provided by real users according to their actual experience.