![[article image]](https://cacm.acm.org/system/assets/0004/1357/102021_Getty_CrowdsensingA.large.jpg?1634847048&1634847048 "group of people in shape of China map, illustration")
Mobile crowdsensing (MCS) presents a new sensing paradigm based on the power of user-companioned devices.11,12 It allows "the increasing number of smartphone users to share local knowledge acquired by their sensor-enhanced devices, and the information can be further aggregated in the cloud for large-scale sensing."4 The mobility of large-scale mobile users makes MCS a versatile platform that can often replace static sensing infrastructures. A broad range of applications are thus enabled, including traffic planning, environment monitoring, urban management, and so on.
During the past decade, MCS has become a surging research topic in China. There are several reasons that precede this new sensing paradigm: