Data Acquisition System for a Distributed Smartphone Cosmic Ray Observatory

TL;DR

This paper presents a software system for a global network of smartphones to collect cosmic ray data efficiently, balancing device resource use and data quality, and integrating with cloud management.

Contribution

It introduces a novel mobile application design that automatically calibrates to diverse hardware and optimizes data transfer for a distributed cosmic ray observatory.

Findings

Efficient data collection without overburdening smartphones

Automatic calibration improves data quality across devices

Cloud integration enables scalable network management

Abstract

A scientific instrument comprised of a global network of millions of independent, connected, remote devices presents unique data acquisition challenges. We describe the software design of a mobile application which collects data from smartphone cameras without overburdening the phone's CPU or battery. The deployed software automatically calibrates to heterogeneous hardware targets to improve the quality and manage the rate of data transfer, and connects to a cloud-based data acquisition system which can manage and refine the operation of the network.