A Universalist strategy for the design of Assistive Technology

Assistive Technologies are specialized products aiming to partly compensate for the loss of autonomy experienced by disabled people. Because they address special needs in a highly-segmented market, they are often considered as niche products. To improve their design and make them tend to Universality, we propose the EMFASIS framework (Extended Modularity, Functional Accessibility, and Social Integration Strategy). We first elaborate on how this strategy conciliates niche and Universalist views, which may appear conflicting at first sight. We then present three examples illustrating its application for designing Assistive Technologies: the design of an overbed table, an upper-limb powered orthose and a powered wheelchair. We conclude on the expected outcomes of our strategy for the social integration and participation of disabled people

Future bathroom: A study of user-centred design principles affecting usability, safety and satisfaction in bathrooms for people living with disabilities

Research and development work relating to assistive technology 2010-11 (Department of Health) Presented to Parliament pursuant to Section 22 of the Chronically Sick and Disabled Persons Act 197

The future design direction of smart clothing development

Literature indicates that Smart Clothing applications, the next generation of clothing and electronic products, have been struggling to enter the mass market because the consumers’ latent needs have not been recognised. Moreover, the design direction of Smart Clothes remains unclear and unfocused. Nevertheless, a clear design direction is necessary for all product development. Therefore, this research aims to identify the design directions of the emerging Smart Clothes industry by conducting a questionnaire survey and focus groups with its major design contributors. The results reveal that the current strategy of embedding a wide range of electronic functions in a garment is not suitable. This is primarily because it does not match the users’ requirements, purchasing criteria and lifestyle. The results highlight the respondents’ preference for personal healthcare and sportswear applications that suit their lifestyle, are aesthetically attractive, and provide a practical function

Major requirements for building Smart Homes in Smart Cities based on Internet of Things technologies

The recent boom in the Internet of Things (IoT) will turn Smart Cities and Smart Homes (SH) from hype to reality. SH is the major building block for Smart Cities and have long been a dream for decades, hobbyists in the late 1970s made Home Automation (HA) possible when personal computers started invading home spaces. While SH can share most of the IoT technologies, there are unique characteristics that make SH special. From the result of a recent research survey on SH and IoT technologies, this paper defines the major requirements for building SH. Seven unique requirement recommendations are defined and classified according to the specific quality of the SH building blocks

The future of housing and technology in Japan - the Connected Homes Group Study Tour.

-Future housing; future technology; Japan

A User-Centred Methodology to Design and Simulate Smart Home Environments and Related Services

openI progressi nelle tecnologie di automazione e comunicazione all'interno degli edifici residenziali offrono molti interessanti vantaggi per lo sviluppo delle Smart Home, come l'aumento di efficienza energetica, il miglioramento il comfort per gli abitanti e la riduzione dei costi operativi per il proprietario. L'aggregazione e la condivisione dei dati all'interno delle reti possono essere garantite dal moderno approccio denominato Internet delle cose (IoT) e supportati dalle nuove tecnologie dell'informazione e della comunicazione (ICT). Tali tecnologie si stanno evolvendo e le abitazioni stanno diventando luoghi tecnologici popolati da una moltitudine di dispositivi in grado di raccogliere una grande quantità di dati e di cooperare in modo intelligente per controllare tutti i dispositivi connessi, come gli elettrodomestici, l'illuminazione, i sistemi di riscaldamento, ecc. Da un lato, l’intelligenza crescente dei dispositivi connessi produce una grande quantità di dati; dall'altro lato, la complessità di tali dati crea difficoltà di classificazione, trasmissione ed interpretazione delle informazioni utili. Entrambi gli aspetti possono ridurre drasticamente i potenziali vantaggi e limitare la diffusione dei cosiddetti dispositivi “smart”. Mentre a livello aziendale già esistono soluzioni di automazione affermate ed ampiamente utilizzate, le applicazioni per le abitazioni private sono ancora di difficile diffusione a causa della mancanza di standard di comunicazione e della presenza di dispositivi e sistemi altamente eterogenei e quindi di difficile integrazione. Inoltre, anche quando la connessione tra due dispositivi viene stabilita, renderli interoperabili è un’altra grande sfida a causa delle differenze nelle modalità di funzionamento e della difficoltà di integrazione dell'interfaccia. Infatti, le Smart Home non consentono ancora una elevata interoperabilità e gli studi fatti sono spesso fortemente orientati alla tecnologia e concentrati sulle potenzialità dei singoli sottosistemi, trascurando i benefici per gli utenti finali. A tale scopo, questo lavoro definisce un modello di gestione delle informazioni per ambienti domestici intelligenti con lo scopo di supportare la progettazione e la simulazione dei dispositivi “smart” nonché dei servizi sviluppati. Tale modello considera diverse tipologie di dispositivi, le relazioni esistenti tra loro, i flussi informativi e le modalità di interazione dell’utente per modellare correttamente l'ambiente e definirne il comportamento. Il modello sviluppato supporta la progettazione della Smart Home ed è in grado di simulare le funzionalità dei dispositivi con lo scopo finale di valutare i benefici dei servizi forniti.The advances in home automation and communication technologies offer several attractive benefits for the modern smart home, such as increased energy efficiency, improved residential comfort and reduced operative costs for the homeowner. Data aggregation and sharing within the networks can be guaranteed by modern Internet of Things (IoT) approaches and supported by available Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) tools. Such technologies are evolving and the private houses are becoming technological places populated by a multitude of devices able to collect a huge quantity of data and to cooperate in an intelligent way to control different domains, from household appliances to lighting or heating and ventilation. On one hand, the rising intelligence of smart devices makes a large amount of data available; on the other hand, data complexity creates difficulties in classifying, transmitting and interpreting essential data. Both aspects may drastically reduce the potential advantages and limit the diffusion smart devices. While in building automation proven solutions already exist, tailored applications for private houses and integration among heterogeneous devices and systems are still challenging due to the lack of standards and the variety of adopted communication protocols and data model schemas. Furthermore, even when the device connection and consolidation are achieved, making them cooperate in an interoperable way is another big challenge due to differences in usage paradigms, operation modes and interface integration. In fact, Smart Homes still lack of high interoperability and researches are often strongly technology-oriented and focused on single sub-system potentialities neglecting the expected benefits for the final users. For this purpose, the presented research defines an information management model for the smart home environment to support design and simulation of its devices as well as the enabled services. Such a model considers different device typologies, their mutual relationships, the information flows and the user interaction modalities in order to properly model the environment and define its behavior. It supports the design of the smart home by simulating the devices’ functionalities and estimating the expected performances.INGEGNERIA MECCANICA E GESTIONALEopenCapitanelli, AndreaCapitanelli, Andre

Proceedings of the 2012 Workshop on Ambient Intelligence Infrastructures (WAmIi)

This is a technical report including the papers presented at the Workshop on Ambient Intelligence Infrastructures (WAmIi) that took place in conjunction with the International Joint Conference on Ambient Intelligence (AmI) in Pisa, Italy on November 13, 2012. The motivation for organizing the workshop was the wish to learn from past experience on Ambient Intelligence systems, and in particular, on the lessons learned on the system architecture of such systems. A significant number of European projects and other research have been performed, often with the goal of developing AmI technology to showcase AmI scenarios. We believe that for AmI to become further successfully accepted the system architecture is essential