HotSense

Thermal is the new visual—with privacy. As smart systems move ever deeper into our homes, hospitals, factories, and cities, the demand for privacy-preserving, spatially rich, and context-aware sensing has never been greater. HotSense is the first dedicated workshop to explore the full stack of thermal sensing and computing, bringing together researchers from mobile computing, embedded systems, HCI, computer vision, robotics, and AI to chart this fast-emerging frontier.

From gesture recognition to depth estimation, from indoor localization to human-machine interaction, from health monitoring to emergency response, thermal sensing offers a powerful yet underexplored modality for ubiquitous computing. With increasingly accessible and compact sensors (e.g., FLIR, Melexis, Meridian), researchers are deploying thermal systems where traditional vision and RF sensing fall short, whether in low-light, occluded, or privacy-sensitive environments.

HotSense @ MobiCom 2025 offers a timely, interdisciplinary venue to shape the future of thermal computing:

• Share cutting-edge results and platforms
• Spark dialogue between mobile systems and vision communities
• Build a global research network around thermal sensing

At its core, HotSense aims to catalyze a vibrant research community around thermal perception and computation—one that spans algorithms, hardware, systems, and real-world applications.

🔥 Thermal sensing is hot! Join us at HotSense @ MobiCom 2025, and help redefine how intelligent systems perceive and interact with the physical world—with thermal.

HotSense is the first workshop dedicated to the full spectrum of thermal sensing and computing across mobile, embedded, and intelligent systems. We welcome original research papers, position papers, and early-stage exploratory work that examine the design, implementation, analysis, and application of thermal sensing systems.

While particular attention will be given to low-cost, low-resolution thermal arrays, the workshop encourages broader contributions across the hardware–algorithm–application stack, including novel sensing modalities, computing frameworks, and cross-disciplinary applications.

Topics of interest include (but are not limited to):

• Gesture, activity, and pose recognition using thermal/infrared signals
• Thermal localization and tracking
• Thermal depth estimation and ranging
• Thermal imaging and space reconstruction
• Robotic perception and navigation augmented by thermal vision
• Material sensing and object classification using thermal signatures
• Privacy-preserving sensing for homes, healthcare, and interactions
• Energy-efficient algorithms and embedded platforms for thermal sensing
• Machine learning and multimodal fusion for thermal perception
• Novel sensors, optics, and metasurface designs
• Thermal sensing for building occupancy and energy efficiency
• Applications in health, AR/VR, cities, and emergency response

Submission Instructions

• Originality: Submissions must be original, unpublished work, and not under review elsewhere.
• Format: Papers should be submitted in PDF format, be no longer than 5 pages, excluding references, and follow the ACM SIGMOBILE double-column format.
• Review Process: The review process will be double-blind. Authors must anonymize their submissions by removing names, affiliations, and any other identifying information for peer review.
• Publication: Accepted papers will be presented at the workshop and published in the ACM Digital Library as part of the MobiCom 2025 Workshop Proceedings.

If you have any questions, please contact Chengxiao via email.