Recent developments and technological advancements in wireless communication, MicroElectroMechanical Systems (MEMS) technology and integrated circuits has enabled low-power, intelligent, miniaturized, invasive/non-invasive micro and nano-technology sensor nodes strategically placed in or around the human body to be used in various applications, such as personal health monitoring. This exciting new area of research is called Wireless Body Area Networks (WBANs) and leverages the emerging IEEE 802.15.6 and IEEE 802.15.4j standards, specifically standardized for medical WBANs. The aim of WBANs is to simplify and improve speed, accuracy, and reliability of communication of sensors/actuators within, on, and in the immediate proximity of a human body. The vast scope of challenges associated with WBANs has led to numerous publications. In this paper, we survey the current state-of-art of WBANs based on the latest standards and publications. Open issues and challenges within each area are also explored as a source of inspiration towards future developments in WBANs.

Wireless Body Area Networks: A Survey

The quality of care practice is difficult to judge Indeed, support and care provision is very personal, ie, assessments are individual and lead to specific care packages, involving social services, health workers, care agencies We expect privacy in our own affairs and confidentially from those to whom we disclose them Therefore, we are in an urgent need for new, technological and formal approaches to problem solving, as the increase of population with special care requirements Following this line of thought, it is one’s goal to present the VirtualECare framework, an intelligent multi-agent system able to monitor, interact and serve its customers, which are in need of care services, based in open standards, expecting not only to fulfil the objectives referred to above, but also to overcome the problems induced by the use of new technologies and formalisms

https://www4.di.uminho.pt/~pjn/Projectos/FCT2009/Pub/UCAMI2008.pdf

Ambient Assisted Living

Automated methods of real-time, unobtrusive, human ambulation, activity, and wellness monitoring and data analysis using various algorithmic techniques have been subjects of intense research. The general aim is to devise effective means of addressing the demands of assisted living, rehabilitation, and clinical observation and assessment through sensor-based monitoring. The research studies have resulted in a large amount of literature. This paper presents a holistic articulation of the research studies and offers comprehensive insights along four main axes: distribution of existing studies; monitoring device framework and sensor types; data collection, processing and analysis; and applications, limitations and challenges. The aim is to present a systematic and most complete study of literature in the area in order to identify research gaps and prioritize future research directions.

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Real-time human ambulation, activity, and physiological monitoring: taxonomy of issues, techniques, applications, challenges and limitations.

We've long heard about the wide functionality that home automation technologies offer for improving our lives and securing our houses. However, price and an unstable domotics market have restricted such systems' deployment. Nowadays, companies offer too technology-dependent solutions that don't cover user demands completely. Meanwhile, research works focus on small innovations on specific parts of home automation systems, which don't consider integration and deployment issues to present practical designs. The system presented in this article considers user requirements, including novel advances, all in an integral home automation solution suitable for many services. The architecture's modular nature allows direct adaptation to specific cases using standard domotic technologies, for managing in-house devices, and a proposal of an IP-based network for connecting the main home automation module with other platform elements. A remote security system has been developed, and managing tasks are enabled via in-home control panels and an advanced 3D application for local and remote homeowner access. The system has been deployed on a prototype house, testing a wide set of domotic services. Moreover, the range of indoor pervasive applications has also been extended to e-health, elderly adaptation, greenhouse automation, and energy efficiency.

http://people.cis.ksu.edu/~danielwang/BAS/05396313.pdf

An Integral and Networked Home Automation Solution for Indoor Ambient Intelligence

Continuous care models for chronic diseases pose several technology-oriented challenges for home-based care, where assistance services rely on a close collaboration among different stakeholders, such as health operators, patient relatives, and social community members. This paper describes an ontology-based context model and a related context management system providing a configurable and extensible service-oriented framework to ease the development of applications for monitoring and handling patient chronic conditions. The system has been developed in a prototypal version, and integrated with a service platform for supporting operators of home-based care networks in cooperating and sharing patient-related information and coordinating mutual interventions for handling critical and alarm situations. Finally, we discuss experimentation results and possible further research directions.

http://lrst.dinfo.unifi.it/people/Paganelli/accepted/TITB-2011.pdf

An Ontology-Based System for Context-Aware and Configurable Services to Support Home-Based Continuous Care

In this paper, we present an integrated system concept for the living assistance domain based on ambient intelligence technology and discuss the resulting challenges for the software engineering discipline. Automated living assistance systems represent a promising approach for the prolongation of an independent and self-conducted life of handicapped and elderly people thereby, enhancing their quality of life and minimizing the need for manual social/medical care. It is demonstrated that living assistance systems must realize flexibility and adaptability at the algorithmic, architectural and human interface level to an extent unknown in present systems. The construction of robust, trustworthy living assistance systems is an extremely challenging task and requires novel approaches for dependable self-adapting software architectures, resource efficiency, and self-adapting multi-modal human-computer interfaces. The resulting consequences and challenges for the discipline of software engineering are outlined in this paper.

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Rosemarie Lamm

Papers

Living assistance systems: an ambient intelligence approach