Amir Muaremi
ABSTRACT
Each year, millions of people visit the sacred sites in Makkah and Madinah. Even though the Hajj pilgrimage is one of the biggest annual events in the world, with many of the pilgrims reporting it as a life-changing experience, quite a little is done to objectively monitor the pilgrims and to understand from the crowd and from the individual point of view what makes this event so special. We present a data collection phase of 8 days of pilgrimage in April 2013 with 41 pilgrims carrying Android smartphones and 10 pilgrims wearing two physiological sensors, namely chest belts and wrist-worn devices. We describe the data recording itself, and emphasize the problems raised and the challenges faced during the study. We provide the best practices for performing solid and efficient user studies in such a difficult environment, and give first insights towards measuring important aspects of the Hajj pilgrimage such as recognition of activities and stages, analysis of group behavior, detection of stressful situations and health monitoring of pilgrims in general.
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Index Terms
- Monitor and understand pilgrims: data collection using smartphones and wearable devices
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