Global science project links Android phones with satellites to improve weather forecasts

This app is used to collect satellite data for research. Camaliot is a campaign funded by the European Space Agency, and its first project is to make smartphone owners around the world part of a project that can help improve weather forecasts by using your phone's gps receiver.

The Camaliot app works on devices that support satellite navigation. Satellite navigation works by looking for signals from a network of satellites that are in a fixed position. The satellites send messages with the time and their location, and once they are received, the phones use that data to figure out where on Earth they are.

Satellite signals can be used to get more information about the atmosphere. The amount of water in the atmosphere can affect how a satellite signal travels through the air.

According to Camaliot's FAQ, the app gathers information to track signal strength, the distance between the phone and the satellite, and the carrier phase. With enough data collected from around the world, researchers can combine that with existing weather readings to measure long-term water vapor trends. They hope to use that data to help forecast the weather. The ionosphere is the part of the atmosphere near space. Creating better ionospheric forecasts could be relevant in tracking space weather and could eventually make Global navigation Satellite Systems (GNSS) more accurate by accounting for events like geomagnetic storms.

Camaliot could eventually expand to include more attempts at collecting data on a massive scale using sensors present in connected home devices.

Image: Camaliot

The project wants to gather information from all over the world. The US Global positioning System (GPS), Russia's GLONASS, China's Beidou, or the EU's Galileo are some of the Global navigation Satellite Systems. Smaller regional constellations are operated by Japan and India. The FCC allowed more devices to use Galileo signals for increased location accuracy.

The Camaliot project has more than 50 newer models with dual-frequency receivers, which can simultaneously pull two GNSS signals with different satellite frequencies. Most of the phones that are confirmed to have dual-frequency receivers are those with high-end chips.

The combination of Galileo dual-band smartphone receiver and Android's support for raw GNSS data recording work together to increase the possibility of how much data can be collected.

Image: Camaliot

The use of at- home tech from outside participants for scientific exploration continues to grow as everyday devices include more processing power and better sensor capability. Other methods include NASA asking the public to use their phones to take photos of clouds or trees, and science apps like iNaturalist documenting animal behavior during a solar eclipse, or tracking different animal species.

How to use Camaliot

The Camaliot app can be downloaded from the Play store on your phone.

1. Select “start logging” and place your phone in an area with a clear sky view to begin logging the data
2. Once you have measured to your liking, select “stop logging”
3. Then, upload your session to the server and repeat the process over time to collect more data. You can also delete your locally-stored log files at this step.

You can see your own measurement against others accumulated over time, and you can also see a log of sessions done by other participants. The information collected for the study will be made available in a separate portal.

Camaliot's database won't be used for post-study publications or products, but the users' passwords, email addresses, and number of measurements will be stored in it. Camaliot says that the need for processing data is necessary for the performance of a task in the public interest and that the need for extensive personal data is for scientific purposes.

There is a chance for registered participants to win prizes such as a dual-frequency Android phone and Amazon vouchers. The campaign will continue until June 30th.