Sensors and Mobile Phones: Evolution and State-of-the-Art

Abstract

Sensors can be found virtually in all fields of applications for automatic real-world data acquisition for using in plethora of decision making processes. Recent advancements have turned mobile phones from simple communication devices into complete computing devices, leveraging novel systems and services. Most of the systems have used sensors for automatic data acquisition and have gained high levels of successes. Due to the increasing use of sensors in mobile phones, today’s mobile phones come with a number of sensors while experiencing the integration of new sensors in the near future. Sensors and mobile phones integration can be attributed to plenty of reasons including easy usage, cost reductions, and high productivity etc. This paper gives a comprehensive overview of sensors integration in mobile phones, sensors classification, identifies a number of available and emerging sensors in mobile phones, and outlines a number of limitations and recommendations for the research communities to address.