CrowdOS: A Ubiquitous Operating System for Crowdsourcing and Mobile Crowd Sensing

Yimeng Liu, Zhiwen Yu, Bin Guo, Qi Han, Jiangbin Su, Jiahao Liao

Abstract: With the rise of crowdsourcing and mobile crowdsensing techniques, a large number of crowdsourcing applications or platforms ( <inline-formula><tex-math notation="LaTeX">$\mathbb {CAP}$</tex-math></inline-formula> ) have appeared. In the mean time, <inline-formula><tex-math notation="LaTeX">$\mathbb {CAP}$</tex-math></inline-formula> -related models and frameworks based on different research hypotheses are rapidly emerging, and they usually address specific issues from a certain perspective. Due to different settings and conditions, different models are not compatible with each other. However, <inline-formula><tex-math notation="LaTeX">$\mathbb {CAP}$</tex-math></inline-formula> urgently needs to combine these techniques to form a unified framework. In addition, these models needs to be learned and updated online with the extension of crowdsourced data and task types; thus, requiring a unified architecture that integrates lifelong learning concepts and breaks down the barriers between different modules. This paper draws on the idea of ubiquitous operating systems and proposes a novel OS (CrowdOS), which is an abstract software layer running between native OS and application layer. In particular, based on an in-depth analysis of the complex crowd environment and diverse characteristics of heterogeneous tasks, we construct the OS kernel and three core frameworks including task resolution and assignment framework ( <i>TRAF</i> ), integrated resource management ( <i>IRM</i> ), and task result quality optimization ( <i>TRO</i> ). In addition, we validate the usability of CrowdOS, module correctness and development efficiency. Our evaluation further reveals <i>TRO</i> brings enormous improvement in efficiency and a reduction in energy consumption.