Smart kitchen for Ambient Assisted Living

El envejecimiento de la población es una realidad en todos los países desarrollados. Las predicciones de crecimiento de esta población son alarmantes, planteando un reto para los servicios sociales y sanitarios. Las personas ancianas padecen diversas discapacidades que se van acentuando con la edad, siendo más propensas a sufrir accidentes domésticos, presentando problemas para realizar tareas cotidianas, etc. Esta situación conlleva a una pérdida paulatina de capacidades que en muchas ocasiones acaba con la vida autónoma de la persona. En este contexto, las Tecnologías de la Información y Comunicación (TIC) aplicadas al entorno doméstico pueden jugar un papel importante, permitiendo que las personas ancianas vivan más tiempo, de forma independiente en su propio hogar, presentando, por tanto, una alternativa a la hospitalización o institucionalización de las mismas. Este trabajo da un paso más en este sentido, presentando el diseño y desarrollo de un Ambiente Inteligente en la cocina, que ayuda a las personas ancianas y/o con discapacidad a desempeñar sus actividades de la vida diaria de una forma más fácil y sencilla. Esta tesis realiza sus principales aportaciones en dos campos: El metodológico y el tecnológico. Por un lado se presenta una metodología sistemática para extraer necesidades de colectivos específicos a fin de mejorar la información disponible por el equipo de diseño del producto, servicio o sistema. Esta metodología se basa en el estudio de la interacción Hombre-Máquina en base a los paradigmas y modelos existentes y el modelado y descripción de las capacidades del usuario en la misma utilizado el lenguaje estandarizado propuesto en la Clasificación Internacional del Funcionamiento, de la Discapacidad y de la Salud (CIF). Adicionalmente, se plantea el problema de la evaluación tecnológica, diseñando la metodología de evaluación de la tecnología con la finalidad de conocer su accesibilidad, funcionalidad y usabilidad del sistema desarrollado y aplicándola a 61 usuarios y 31 profesionales de la gerontología. Desde un punto de vista técnico, se afronta el diseño de un ambiente asistido inteligente (Ambient Assisted Living, AAL) en la cocina, planteando y definiendo la arquitectura del sistema. Esta arquitectura, basada en OSGi (Open Services Gateway initiative), oferta un sistema modular, con altas capacidades de interoperabilidad y escalabilidad. Además, se diseña e implementa una red de sensores distribuida en el entorno con el fin de obtener la mayor información posible del contexto, presentando distintos algoritmos para obtener información de alto nivel: detección de caídas o localización. Todos los dispositivos presentes en el entorno han sido modelados utilizando la taxonomía propuesta en OSGi4AmI, extendiendo la misma a los electrodomésticos más habituales de la cocina. Finalmente, se presenta el diseño e implementación de la inteligencia del sistema, que en función de la información procedente del contexto y de las capacidades del usuario da soporte a las principales actividades de la vida diaria (AVD) en la cocina

On the Integration of Adaptive and Interactive Robotic Smart Spaces

© 2015 Mauro Dragone et al.. This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 3.0 License. (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0)Enabling robots to seamlessly operate as part of smart spaces is an important and extended challenge for robotics R&D and a key enabler for a range of advanced robotic applications, such as AmbientAssisted Living (AAL) and home automation. The integration of these technologies is currently being pursued from two largely distinct view-points: On the one hand, people-centred initiatives focus on improving the user’s acceptance by tackling human-robot interaction (HRI) issues, often adopting a social robotic approach, and by giving to the designer and - in a limited degree – to the final user(s), control on personalization and product customisation features. On the other hand, technologically-driven initiatives are building impersonal but intelligent systems that are able to pro-actively and autonomously adapt their operations to fit changing requirements and evolving users’ needs,but which largely ignore and do not leverage human-robot interaction and may thus lead to poor user experience and user acceptance. In order to inform the development of a new generation of smart robotic spaces, this paper analyses and compares different research strands with a view to proposing possible integrated solutions with both advanced HRI and online adaptation capabilities.Peer reviewe

A transformation grammar-based methodology for housing rehabilitation: meeting contemporary functional and ICT requirements

This research starts from the premise that the future of the real estate market in Portugal will require the rehabilitation of existing residential areas in order to respond to new life-styles and dwelling requirements that have emerged in an era in which information plays a structuring role in society. The goal of this research is the definition of design guidelines and a rehabilitation methodology to support architects involved in the process of adapting existing dwellings, allowing them to balance sustainability requirements and economic feasibility with new dwelling trends such as the incorporation and updating of Information Communication and Automation Technologies and the need to solve emerging conflicts affecting the use of space prompted by the introduction of new functions associated with such technologies. In addition to defining a general methodology applicable to all the building types, the study focuses on a specific type, called “rabo-de-bacalhau” (“cod-tail”), built in Lisbon between 1945 and 1965 for which a specifc methodology has been generated. Both shape grammar and space syntax were used as part of the rehabilitation methodology as tools to identify and encode the principles and rules behind the adaptation of existing houses to new requirements.FCT PhD Gran

Towards a Sustainable Life: Smart and Green Design in Buildings and Community

This Special Issue includes contributions about occupants’ sustainable living in buildings and communities, highlighting issues surrounding the sustainable development of our environments and lives by emphasizing smart and green design perspectives. This Special Issue specifically focuses on research and case studies that develop promising methods for the sustainable development of our environment and identify factors critical to the application of a sustainable paradigm for quality of life from a user-oriented perspective. After a rigorous review of the submissions by experts, fourteen articles concerning sustainable living and development are published in this Special Issue, written by authors sharing their expertise and approaches to the concept and application of sustainability in their fields. The fourteen contributions to this special issue can be categorized into four groups, depending on the issues that they address. All the proposed methods, models, and applications in these studies contribute to the current understanding of the adoption of the sustainability paradigm and are likely to inspire further research addressing the challenges of constructing sustainable buildings and communities resulting in a sustainable life for all of society

EXPLORING THE ACCESSIBILITY OF HOME-BASED, VOICE-CONTROLLED INTELLIGENT PERSONAL ASSISTANTS

From an accessibility perspective, home-based, voice-controlled intelligent personal assistants (IPAs) have the potential to greatly expand speech interaction beyond dictation and screenreader output. This research examines the accessibility of off-the-shelf IPAs (e.g., Amazon Echo) by conducting two exploratory studies. To explore the use of IPAs by people with disabilities, we analyzed 346 Amazon Echo reviews mentioning users with disabilities, followed by interviews with 16 visually impaired IPA users. Although some accessibility challenges exist, individuals with a range of disabilities are using IPAs, including unexpected uses such as speech therapy and memory aids. The second study involved a three-week deployment of Echo Dot, a popular IPA, with five older adults who use technology infrequently. Findings indicate preferences for using IPAs over traditional computing devices. We identify design implications to improve IPAs for this population. Both studies highlight issues of discoverability and the need for feature-rich voice-based applications. The findings of this research can inform future work on accessible voice-based IPAs

Accessibility of Health Data Representations for Older Adults: Challenges and Opportunities for Design

Health data of consumer off-the-shelf wearable devices is often conveyed to users through visual data representations and analyses. However, this is not always accessible to people with disabilities or older people due to low vision, cognitive impairments or literacy issues. Due to trade-offs between aesthetics predominance or information overload, real-time user feedback may not be conveyed easily from sensor devices through visual cues like graphs and texts. These difficulties may hinder critical data understanding. Additional auditory and tactile feedback can also provide immediate and accessible cues from these wearable devices, but it is necessary to understand existing data representation limitations initially. To avoid higher cognitive and visual overload, auditory and haptic cues can be designed to complement, replace or reinforce visual cues. In this paper, we outline the challenges in existing data representation and the necessary evidence to enhance the accessibility of health information from personal sensing devices used to monitor health parameters such as blood pressure, sleep, activity, heart rate and more. By creating innovative and inclusive user feedback, users will likely want to engage and interact with new devices and their own data

Occupancy monitoring and prediction in ambient intelligent environment

Occupancy monitoring and prediction as an influential factor in the extraction of occupants' behavioural patterns for the realisation of ambient intelligent environments is addressed in this research. The proposed occupancy monitoring technique uses occupancy detection sensors with unobtrusive features to monitor occupancy in the environment. Initially the occupancy detection is conducted for a purely single-occupant environment. Then, it is extended to the multipleoccupant environment and associated problems are investigated. Along with the occupancy monitoring, it is aimed to supply prediction techniques with a suitable occupancy signal as the input which can enhance efforts in developing ambient intelligent environments. By predicting the occupancy pattern of monitored occupants, safety, security, the convenience of occupants, and energy saving can be improved. Elderly care and supporting people with health problems like dementia and Alzheimer disease are amongst the applications of such an environment. In the research, environments are considered in different scenarios based on the complexity of the problem including single-occupant and multiple-occupant scenarios. Using simple sensory devices instead of visual equipment without any impact on privacy and her/his normal daily activity, an occupant is monitored in a living or working environment in the single-occupant scenario. ZigBee wireless communication technology is used to collect signals from sensory devices such as motion detection sensors and door contact sensors. All these technologies together including sensors, wireless communication, and tagging are integrated as a wireless sensory agent

Ami-deu : un cadre sémantique pour des applications adaptables dans des environnements intelligents

Cette thèse vise à étendre l’utilisation de l'Internet des objets (IdO) en facilitant le développement d’applications par des personnes non experts en développement logiciel. La thèse propose une nouvelle approche pour augmenter la sémantique des applications d’IdO et l’implication des experts du domaine dans le développement d’applications sensibles au contexte. Notre approche permet de gérer le contexte changeant de l’environnement et de générer des applications qui s’exécutent dans plusieurs environnements intelligents pour fournir des actions requises dans divers contextes. Notre approche est mise en œuvre dans un cadriciel (AmI-DEU) qui inclut les composants pour le développement d’applications IdO. AmI-DEU intègre les services d’environnement, favorise l’interaction de l’utilisateur et fournit les moyens de représenter le domaine d’application, le profil de l’utilisateur et les intentions de l’utilisateur. Le cadriciel permet la définition d’applications IoT avec une intention d’activité autodécrite qui contient les connaissances requises pour réaliser l’activité. Ensuite, le cadriciel génère Intention as a Context (IaaC), qui comprend une intention d’activité autodécrite avec des connaissances colligées à évaluer pour une meilleure adaptation dans des environnements intelligents. La sémantique de l’AmI-DEU est basée sur celle du ContextAA (Context-Aware Agents) – une plateforme pour fournir une connaissance du contexte dans plusieurs environnements. Le cadriciel effectue une compilation des connaissances par des règles et l'appariement sémantique pour produire des applications IdO autonomes capables de s’exécuter en ContextAA. AmI- DEU inclut également un outil de développement visuel pour le développement et le déploiement rapide d'applications sur ContextAA. L'interface graphique d’AmI-DEU adopte la métaphore du flux avec des aides visuelles pour simplifier le développement d'applications en permettant des définitions de règles étape par étape. Dans le cadre de l’expérimentation, AmI-DEU comprend un banc d’essai pour le développement d’applications IdO. Les résultats expérimentaux montrent une optimisation sémantique potentielle des ressources pour les applications IoT dynamiques dans les maisons intelligentes et les villes intelligentes. Notre approche favorise l'adoption de la technologie pour améliorer le bienêtre et la qualité de vie des personnes. Cette thèse se termine par des orientations de recherche que le cadriciel AmI-DEU dévoile pour réaliser des environnements intelligents omniprésents fournissant des adaptations appropriées pour soutenir les intentions des personnes.Abstract: This thesis aims at expanding the use of the Internet of Things (IoT) by facilitating the development of applications by people who are not experts in software development. The thesis proposes a new approach to augment IoT applications’ semantics and domain expert involvement in context-aware application development. Our approach enables us to manage the changing environment context and generate applications that run in multiple smart environments to provide required actions in diverse settings. Our approach is implemented in a framework (AmI-DEU) that includes the components for IoT application development. AmI- DEU integrates environment services, promotes end-user interaction, and provides the means to represent the application domain, end-user profile, and end-user intentions. The framework enables the definition of IoT applications with a self-described activity intention that contains the required knowledge to achieve the activity. Then, the framework generates Intention as a Context (IaaC), which includes a self-described activity intention with compiled knowledge to be assessed for augmented adaptations in smart environments. AmI-DEU framework semantics adopts ContextAA (Context-Aware Agents) – a platform to provide context-awareness in multiple environments. The framework performs a knowledge compilation by rules and semantic matching to produce autonomic IoT applications to run in ContextAA. AmI-DEU also includes a visual tool for quick application development and deployment to ContextAA. The AmI-DEU GUI adopts the flow metaphor with visual aids to simplify developing applications by allowing step-by-step rule definitions. As part of the experimentation, AmI-DEU includes a testbed for IoT application development. Experimental results show a potential semantic optimization for dynamic IoT applications in smart homes and smart cities. Our approach promotes technology adoption to improve people’s well-being and quality of life. This thesis concludes with research directions that the AmI-DEU framework uncovers to achieve pervasive smart environments providing suitable adaptations to support people’s intentions