Opportunities for activity recognition using ultrasound doppler sensing on unmodified mobile phones

Nowadays activity recognition on smartphones is ubiquitously applied, for example to monitor personal health. The smartphone's sensors act as a foundation to provide information on movements, the user's location or direction. Incorporating ultrasound sensing using the smartphone's native speaker and microphone provides additional means for perceiving the environment and humans. In this paper, we outline possible usage scenarios for this new and promising sensing modality. Based on a custom implementation, we provide results on various experiments to assess the opportunities for activity recognition systems. We discuss various limitations and possibilities when wearing the smartphone on the human body. In stationary deployments, e.g. while placed on a night desk, our implementation is able to detect movements in proximities up to 2 m as well as discern several gestures performed above the phone.