Designing a Hybrid Push-Pull Architecture for Mobile Crowdsensing using the Web of Things

Mobile crowdsensing (MCS) is an emerging paradigm that leverages the pervasive presence of mobile devices to collect and analyze data from the environment. However, the choice of a push- or pull-based architecture for MCS can result in a loss of flexibility and limitations for the creators of the campaigns (crowdsourcers). To address this issue, we propose a hybrid push-pull architecture for MCS campaigns that leverages the W3C Web of Things (WoT) to standardize the interfaces and interactions of devices through well-consolidated Web technologies. Furthermore, we present the design and implementation of a WoT-enabled Android application for MCS. We evaluate our proposal through simulations in a vehicular scenario based on a real dataset, showing that the hybrid architecture provides greater flexibility to crowdsourcers, supporting simultaneously the push and pull paradigms.