Acuity is looking for a mobile app developer to create a pair of applications to transmit video and data over cellular networks from one or more Android phones to a mobile Android or Windows tablet equipped with one or more USB cellular data sticks. No user will be operating the phones, so the phone app must initiate calls or accept calls from the tablet app.
## Deliverables
Acuity is looking for a mobile app developer to create a pair of applications to transmit video and data over cellular networks from one or more Android phones to a mobile Android tablet equipped with one or more USB cellular data sticks. No user will be operating the phones, so the phone app must initiate calls or accept calls from the tablet app.
The project will proceed in two phases. **This bid should be for the first phase only.** In the first phase a single phone app will send video and data to the tablet. The tablet app will accept pan and zoom commands from the tablet user using a simple touch interface and send them to the phone app, which will implement electronic pan and zoom by binning and subwindowing the multimegapixel camera video into approximately VGA resolution. Some form of video compression will then be applied, preferably H.264. The tablet app will receive, decompress and display the video and data. The data will be simple text messages which will be displayed as video overlays or in a separate window on the tablet.
The phone app should utilize the latest 3G enhancements such as AT&T or T-Mobile HSPA+ and unscheduled packet services to ensure minimum time delay (latency) in both directions when in an enhanced 3G coverage area, as 4G/LTE coverage will not be available in the operating areas. Maintaining the minimum possible time between the video capture and its display on the remote tablet, and between user pan-zoom commands and their execution on the phone are priorities for the first phase. Video quality will eventually need to be adjusted to use available bandwidth, but may be set to a fixed bit rate for the first phase. Initial service used for testing may be AT&T, T-Mobile, Verizon, or other service widely available across the US. It is acceptable to tune the prototype app to function well on only one of these services initially.
In the second phase additional phones will added at the same locations as the first. Additional USB cellular data sticks will be connected to the tablet, and each phone will establish their own call to the tablet. The tablet user will select the phone from which he wishes to view video, and the tablet app will transmit this information to all phones. The app in the selected will become the USB master and will transmit portions of the video from its camera to the other phones. Each phone will then transmit its portion of the video to the tablet app, which will then reassemble the video and display it.
On the USB bus with the phones will also be another computer that will provide data to be sent to the tablet. This data will be requested by the USB master periodically, and will consist of 1 to 3 kbps. The tablet operator will be able to send video control commands and other commands from the tablet app to the phones as well as data to the computer, which will be relayed by the phone acting as bus master. The final user interface for the tablet app and other details will be defined before the second phase is begun.
Bidders, please provide information on your background in application development that has included services and features related to the requirements, languages you would use, and price and estimated delivery time for the first phase described above.