SIPAS

Assessment of information management systems, position filtering and activity detection for senior citizens

Aims

The goal of the feasibility study SIPAS are investigations concerning the development of an information management system for carers to improve the mobility of elderly people in private or special-care home. Different concepts for the information system and algorithmic approaches for the activity recognition and the positioning in indoor and outdoor environments especially for the application with elderly people will be investigated.

Brief Description

The main goal of the feasibility study SIPAS is the investigation concerning realisation possibilities of an information management system for confidants/carers to preserve or respectively improve the mobility and security of elderly and cared people. This feasibility study serves as preparation for a R&D project. Within this project, a central information system will be developed, which provides in case of an emergency all necessary information in real-time to handle the situation. This system is supported by mobile devices which determine the position, the activity and the vital parameters of the elderly people and transmit these data to the center. The information center forwards the corresponding messages to related confidants, relatives, or rescue units. By providing position, activity and vital information, the confidants/carers get immediately the most important information (What happened? To whom? Where?). Therefore, different methods and algorithms for the positioning and activity recognition especially for the application with elderly people have to be investigated. Present systems for the positioning in indoor environments do either depend on expensive infrastructure or do not offer an sufficient position accuracy for emergency cases. Outdoors, the positioning is mostly done by applying appropriate algorithms on GNSS signals. However, up to now the absolute positioning has to be supported/filtered by relative position differences based on inertial measurement data in indoor as well as outdoor environments to guarantee a continuous and reliable positioning. Within this feasibility study, a particle filter approach is investigated, which can be adapted to the movement pattern of elderly people and integrated the actual activity state. The particle filter and the algorithms for the activity recognition strongly depend on the individual and have up to now not been investigated especially for the application with elderly and cared persons. Present systems offer only single components of the planned information system and are based on special, high pricing devices. Till now, no overall system for positioning, activity recognition and alerting has been developed. The mentioned approaches and algorithms for the positioning and the activity recognition will be investigated with respect to low price off-the-shelf devices, whereat the focus will be set on sensors of a smartwatch. A further goal of the feasibility study is the preparation of recommendations and the investigation of different concepts for the planned information management system.

For the human factor design cultural, humanities and social aspects and the requirements of the users will be considered. The users have offered (per Letter of Interest) to support the investigations as consultants. Additionally, the acceptance of elderly people concerning the use of off-the-shelf devices (smartphones or Smartwatches) will be proofed.