1,925 research outputs found
Multimedia sensors embedded in smartphones for ambient assisted living and e-health
The final publication is available at link.springer.com[EN] Nowadays, it is widely extended the use of smartphones to make human life more comfortable. Moreover, there is a special interest on Ambient Assisted Living (AAL) and e-Health applications. The sensor technology is growing and amount of embedded sensors in the smartphones can be very useful for AAL and e-Health. While some sensors like the accelerometer, gyroscope or light sensor are very used in applications such as motion detection or light meter, there are other ones, like the microphone and camera which can be used as multimedia sensors. This paper reviews the published papers focused on showing proposals, designs and deployments of that make use of multimedia sensors for AAL and e-health. We have classified them as a function of their main use. They are the sound gathered by the microphone and image recorded by the camera. We also include a comparative table and analyze the gathered information.Parra-Boronat, L.; Sendra, S.; Jimenez, JM.; Lloret, J. (2016). Multimedia sensors embedded in smartphones for ambient assisted living and e-health. Multimedia Tools and Applications. 75(21):13271-13297. doi:10.1007/s11042-015-2745-8S13271132977521Acampora G, Cook DJ, Rashidi P, Vasilakos AV (2013) A survey on ambient intelligence in healthcare. Proc IEEE 101(12):2470–2494Al-Attas R, Yassine A, Shirmohammadi S (2012) Tele-Medical Applications in Home-Based Health Care. In proceeding of the 2012 I.E. International Conference on Multimedia and Expo Workshops (ICMEW 2012). Jul. 9–13, 2012. Melbourne, Australia. (pp. 441–446)Alemdar H, Ersoy C (2010) Wireless sensor networks for healthcare: a survey. Comput Netw 54(15):2688–2710Alqassim S, Ganesh M, Khoja S, Zaidi M, Aloul F, Sagahyroon A (2012) Sleep apnea monitoring using mobile phones. 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Revisión del estado del arte sobre tendencias tecnológicas para el análisis del comportamiento y actividades humanas
The study of human behavior allows the knowledge about people's behaviors, behavior determined by multiple factors: cultural, social, psychological, genetic, religious, among others, which affect the relationships and interaction with the environment. The infinity of data in our lives and the search for behavioral patterns from that data has been an amazing work whose benefit is focused on the determined patterns and intelligent analysis that lead to new knowledge. A significant amount of resources from pattern recognition in human activities and daily life has had greater dominance in the management of mobility, health and wellness.The current paper presents a review of technologies for human behavior analysis and use as tools for diagnosis, assistance, for interaction in intelligent environments and assisted robotics applications. The main scope is to give an overview of the technological advances in the analysis of human behavior, activities of daily living and mobility, and the benefits obtained.El estudio del comportamiento humano permite el conocimiento sobre las conductas de las personas, conducta determinada por mĂşltiples factores: culturales, sociales, psicolĂłgicos, genĂ©ticos, religiosos, entre otros; que inciden en las relaciones y la interacciĂłn con el entorno. La infinidad de datos en nuestras vidas y la bĂşsqueda de patrones de comportamiento a partir de esos datos ha sido un trabajo asombroso cuyo provecho se centra en los patrones determinados y el análisis inteligente que conducen a nuevos conocimientos. Una cantidad significativa de recursos a partir del reconocimiento de patrones en las actividades humanas y de vida diaria ha tenido mayor dominio en la gestiĂłn de la movilidad, la salud y bienestar.El actual documento presenta una revisiĂłn de las tecnologĂas para el análisis del comportamiento humano y del uso como herramientas para el diagnĂłstico, asistencia, para la interacciĂłn en ambientes inteligentes y aplicaciones de robĂłtica asistida. El alcance principal es dar una visiĂłn general de los avances tecnolĂłgicos en el análisis del comportamiento humano, actividades de la vida diaria y movilidad, y de los beneficios obtenidos
Internet of Things Architectures, Technologies, Applications, Challenges, and Future Directions for Enhanced Living Environments and Healthcare Systems: A Review
Internet of Things (IoT) is an evolution of the Internet and has been gaining increased
attention from researchers in both academic and industrial environments. Successive technological
enhancements make the development of intelligent systems with a high capacity for communication
and data collection possible, providing several opportunities for numerous IoT applications,
particularly healthcare systems. Despite all the advantages, there are still several open issues
that represent the main challenges for IoT, e.g., accessibility, portability, interoperability, information
security, and privacy. IoT provides important characteristics to healthcare systems, such as availability,
mobility, and scalability, that o er an architectural basis for numerous high technological healthcare
applications, such as real-time patient monitoring, environmental and indoor quality monitoring,
and ubiquitous and pervasive information access that benefits health professionals and patients.
The constant scientific innovations make it possible to develop IoT devices through countless services
for sensing, data fusing, and logging capabilities that lead to several advancements for enhanced
living environments (ELEs). This paper reviews the current state of the art on IoT architectures for
ELEs and healthcare systems, with a focus on the technologies, applications, challenges, opportunities,
open-source platforms, and operating systems. Furthermore, this document synthesizes the existing
body of knowledge and identifies common threads and gaps that open up new significant and
challenging future research directions.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio
Fall Prediction and Prevention Systems: Recent Trends, Challenges, and Future Research Directions.
Fall prediction is a multifaceted problem that involves complex interactions between physiological, behavioral, and environmental factors. Existing fall detection and prediction systems mainly focus on physiological factors such as gait, vision, and cognition, and do not address the multifactorial nature of falls. In addition, these systems lack efficient user interfaces and feedback for preventing future falls. Recent advances in internet of things (IoT) and mobile technologies offer ample opportunities for integrating contextual information about patient behavior and environment along with physiological health data for predicting falls. This article reviews the state-of-the-art in fall detection and prediction systems. It also describes the challenges, limitations, and future directions in the design and implementation of effective fall prediction and prevention systems
An m-health application for cerebral stroke detection and monitoring using cloud services
[EN] Over 25 million people suffered from cerebral strokes in a span of 23 years. Many systems are being developed to monitor and improve the life of patients that suffer from different diseases. However, solutions for cerebral strokes are hard to find. Moreover, due to their widespread utilization, smartphones have presented themselves as the most appropriate devices for many e-health systems. In this paper, we propose a cerebral stroke detection solution that employs the cloud to store and analyze data in order to provide statistics to public institutions. Moreover, the prototype of the application is presented. The three most important symptoms of cerebral strokes were considered to develop the tasks that are conducted. Thus, the first task detects smiles, the second task employs voice recognition to determine if a sentence is repeated correctly and, the third task determines if the arms can be raised. Several tests were performed in order to verify the application. Results show its ability to determine whether users have the symptoms of cerebral stroke or not.This work has been partially supported by the pre-doctoral student grant "Ayudas para contratos predoctorales de Formacion del Profesorado Universitario FPU (Convocatoria 2014)" by the "Ministerio de Educacion, Cultura y Deporte", with reference: FPU14/02953.GarcĂa-GarcĂa, L.; Tomás GironĂ©s, J.; Parra-Boronat, L.; Lloret, J. (2019). An m-health application for cerebral stroke detection and monitoring using cloud services. International Journal of Information Management. 45:319-327. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijinfomgt.2018.06.004S3193274
Internet of Things Architectures for Enhanced Living Environments
Ambient Assisted Living (AAL) is an emerging multidisciplinary research area that aims to create
an ecosystem of different types of sensors, computers, mobile devices, wireless networks, and
software applications for enhanced living environments and occupational health. There are
several challenges in the development and implementation of an effective AAL system, such as
system architecture, human-computer interaction, ergonomics, usability, and accessibility.
There are also social and ethical challenges, such as acceptance by seniors and the privacy and
confidentiality that must be a requirement of AAL devices. It is also essential to ensure that
technology does not replace human care and is used as a relevant complement.
The Internet of Things (IoT) is a paradigm where objects are connected to the Internet and
support sensing capabilities. IoT devices should be ubiquitous, recognize the context, and
support intelligence capabilities closely related to AAL. Technological advances allow defining
new advanced tools and platforms for real-time health monitoring and decision making in the
treatment of various diseases. IoT is a suitable approach to building healthcare systems, and it
provides a suitable platform for ubiquitous health services, using, for example, portable sensors
to carry data to servers and smartphones for communication. Despite the potential of the IoT
paradigm and technologies for healthcare systems, several challenges to be overcome still
exist. The direction and impact of IoT in the economy are not clearly defined, and there are
barriers to the immediate and ubiquitous adoption of IoT products, services, and solutions.
Several sources of pollutants have a high impact on indoor living environments. Consequently,
indoor air quality is recognized as a fundamental variable to be controlled for enhanced health
and well-being. It is critical to note that typically most people occupy more than 90% of their
time inside buildings, and poor indoor air quality negatively affects performance and
productivity.
Research initiatives are required to address air quality issues to adopt legislation and real-time
inspection mechanisms to improve public health, not only to monitor public places, schools,
and hospitals but also to increase the rigor of building rules. Therefore, it is necessary to use
real-time monitoring systems for correct analysis of indoor air quality to ensure a healthy
environment in at least public spaces. In most cases, simple interventions provided by
homeowners can produce substantial positive impacts on indoor air quality, such as avoiding
indoor smoking and the correct use of natural ventilation.
An indoor air quality monitoring system helps the detection and improvement of air quality
conditions. Local and distributed assessment of chemical concentrations is significant for safety (e.g., detection of gas leaks and monitoring of pollutants) as well as to control heating,
ventilation, and HVAC systems to improve energy efficiency. Real-time indoor air quality
monitoring provides reliable data for the correct control of building automation systems and
should be assumed as a decision support platform on planning interventions for enhanced living
environments. However, the monitoring systems currently available are expensive and only
allow the collection of random samples that are not provided with time information. Most
solutions on the market only allow data consulting limited to device memory and require
procedures for downloading and manipulating data with specific software. In this way, the
development of innovative environmental monitoring systems based on ubiquitous technologies
that allow real-time analysis becomes essential.
This thesis resulted in the design and development of IoT architectures using modular and
scalable structures for air quality monitoring based on data collected from cost-effective
sensors for enhanced living environments. The proposed architectures address several
concepts, including acquisition, processing, storage, analysis, and visualization of data. These
systems incorporate an alert management Framework that notifies the user in real-time in poor
indoor air quality scenarios. The software Framework supports multiple alert methods, such as
push notifications, SMS, and e-mail. The real-time notification system offers several advantages
when the goal is to achieve effective changes for enhanced living environments. On the one
hand, notification messages promote behavioral changes. These alerts allow the building
manager to identify air quality problems and plan interventions to avoid unhealthy air quality
scenarios. The proposed architectures incorporate mobile computing technologies such as
mobile applications that provide ubiquitous air quality data consulting methods s. Also, the
data is stored and can be shared with medical teams to support the diagnosis.
The state-of-the-art analysis has resulted in a review article on technologies, applications,
challenges, opportunities, open-source IoT platforms, and operating systems. This review was
significant to define the IoT-based Framework for indoor air quality supervision. The research
leads to the development and design of cost-effective solutions based on open-source
technologies that support Wi-Fi communication and incorporate several advantages such as
modularity, scalability, and easy installation. The results obtained are auspicious, representing
a significant contribution to enhanced living environments and occupational health.
Particulate matter (PM) is a complex mixture of solid and liquid particles of organic and
inorganic substances suspended in the air. Moreover, it is considered the pollutant that affects
more people. The most damaging particles to health are ≤PM10 (diameter 10 microns or less),
which can penetrate and lodge deep within the lungs, contributing to the risk of developing
cardiovascular and respiratory diseases as well as lung cancer. Taking into account the adverse
health effects of PM exposure, an IoT architecture for automatic PM monitoring was proposed.
The proposed architecture is a PM real-time monitoring system and a decision-making tool. The
solution consists of a hardware prototype for data acquisition and a Web Framework developed in .NET for data consulting. This system is based on open-source and technologies, with several
advantages compared to existing systems, such as modularity, scalability, low-cost and easy
installation. The data is stored in a database developed in SQL SERVER using .NET Web services.
The results show the ability of the system to analyze the indoor air quality in real-time and the
potential of the Web Framework for the planning of interventions to ensure safe, healthy, and
comfortable conditions.
Associations of high concentrations of carbon dioxide (CO2) with low productivity at work and
increased health problems are well documented. There is also a clear correlation between high
levels of CO2 and high concentrations of pollutants in indoor air. There are sufficient reasons
to monitor CO2 and provide real-time notifications to improve occupational health and provide
a safe and healthy indoor living environment. Taking into account the significant influence of
CO2 for enhanced living environments, a real-time IoT architecture for CO2 monitoring was
proposed. CO2 was selected because it is easy to measure and is produced in quantity (by people
and combustion equipment). It can be used as an indicator of other pollutants and, therefore,
of air quality in general. The solution consists of a hardware prototype for data acquisition
environment, a Web software, and a smartphone application for data consulting. The proposed
architecture is based on open-source technologies, and the data is stored in a SQL SERVER
database. The mobile Framework allows the user not only to consult the latest data collected
but also to receive real-time notifications in poor indoor air quality scenarios, and to configure
the alerts threshold levels. The results show that the mobile application not only provides easy
access to real-time air quality data, but also allows the user to maintain parameter history and
provide a history of changes. Consequently, this system allows the user to analyze in a precise
and detailed manner the behavior of air quality.
Finally, an air quality monitoring solution was implemented, consisting of a hardware prototype
that incorporates only the MICS-6814 sensor as the detection unit. This system monitors various
air quality parameters such as NH3 (ammonia), CO (carbon monoxide), NO2 (nitrogen dioxide),
C3H8 (propane), C4H10 (butane), CH4 (methane), H2 (hydrogen) and C2H5OH (ethanol). The
monitoring of the concentrations of these pollutants is essential to provide enhanced living
environments. This solution is based on Cloud, and the collected data is sent to the ThingSpeak
platform. The proposed Framework combines sensitivity, flexibility, and measurement
accuracy in real-time, allowing a significant evolution of current air quality controls. The results
show that this system provides easy, intuitive, and fast access to air quality data as well as
relevant notifications in poor air quality situations to provide real-time intervention and
improve occupational health. These data can be accessed by physicians to support diagnoses
and correlate the symptoms and health problems of patients with the environment in which
they live. As future work, the results reported in this thesis can be considered as a starting point for the
development of a secure system sharing data with health professionals in order to serve as
decision support in diagnosis.Ambient Assisted Living (AAL) é uma área de investigação multidisciplinar emergente que visa
a construção de um ecossistema de diferentes tipos de sensores, microcontroladores,
dispositivos móveis, redes sem fios e aplicações de software para melhorar os ambientes de
vida e a saúde ocupacional. Existem muitos desafios no desenvolvimento e na implementação
de um sistema AAL, como a arquitetura do sistema, interação humano-computador, ergonomia,
usabilidade e acessibilidade. Existem também problemas sociais e éticos, como a aceitação por
parte dos utilizadores mais vulneráveis e a privacidade e confidencialidade, que devem ser uma
exigência de todos os dispositivos AAL. De facto, também é essencial assegurar que a tecnologia
nĂŁo substitua o cuidado humano e seja usada como um complemento essencial.
A Internet das Coisas (IoT) Ă© um paradigma em que os objetos estĂŁo conectados Ă Internet e
suportam recursos sensoriais. Tendencialmente, os dispositivos IoT devem ser omnipresentes,
reconhecer o contexto e ativar os recursos de inteligĂŞncia ambiente intimamente relacionados
ao AAL. Os avanços tecnológicos permitem definir novas ferramentas avançadas e plataformas
para monitorização de saúde em tempo real e tomada de decisão no tratamento de várias
doenças. A IoT é uma abordagem adequada para construir sistemas de saúde sendo que oferece
uma plataforma para serviços de saĂşde ubĂquos, usando, por exemplo, sensores portáteis para
recolha e transmissão de dados e smartphones para comunicação. Apesar do potencial do
paradigma e tecnologias IoT para o desenvolvimento de sistemas de saĂşde, muitos desafios
continuam ainda por ser resolvidos. A direção e o impacto das soluções IoT na economia não
está claramente definido existindo, portanto, barreiras à adoção imediata de produtos, serviços
e soluções de IoT.
Os ambientes de vida sĂŁo caracterizados por diversas fontes de poluentes. Consequentemente,
a qualidade do ar interior é reconhecida como uma variável fundamental a ser controlada de
forma a melhorar a saúde e o bem-estar. É importante referir que tipicamente a maioria das
pessoas ocupam mais de 90% do seu tempo no interior de edifĂcios e que a má qualidade do ar
interior afeta negativamente o desempenho e produtividade.
É necessário que as equipas de investigação continuem a abordar os problemas de qualidade do
ar visando a adoção de legislação e mecanismos de inspeção que atuem em tempo real para a
melhoraria da saĂşde e qualidade de vida, tanto em locais pĂşblicos como escolas e hospitais e
residĂŞncias particulares de forma a aumentar o rigor das regras de construção de edifĂcios. Para
tal, é necessário utilizar mecanismos de monitorização em tempo real de forma a possibilitar
a análise correta da qualidade do ambiente interior para garantir ambientes de vida saudáveis.
Na maioria dos casos, intervenções simples que podem ser executadas pelos proprietários ou ocupantes da residência podem produzir impactos positivos substanciais na qualidade do ar
interior, como evitar fumar em ambientes fechados e o uso correto de ventilação natural.
Um sistema de monitorização e avaliação da qualidade do ar interior ajuda na deteção e na
melhoria das condições ambiente. A avaliação local e distribuĂda das concentrações quĂmicas Ă©
significativa para a segurança (por exemplo, deteção de fugas de gás e supervisão dos
poluentes) bem como para controlar o aquecimento, ventilação, e sistemas de ar condicionado
(HVAC) visando a melhoria da eficiência energética. A monitorização em tempo real da
qualidade do ar interior fornece dados fiáveis para o correto controlo de sistemas de automação
de edifĂcios e deve ser assumida com uma plataforma de apoio Ă decisĂŁo no que se refere ao
planeamento de intervenções para ambientes de vida melhorados. No entanto, os sistemas de
monitorização atualmente disponĂveis sĂŁo de alto custo e apenas permitem a recolha de
amostras aleatórias que não são providas de informação temporal. A maioria das soluções
disponĂveis no mercado permite apenas a acesso ao histĂłrico de dados que Ă© limitado Ă memĂłria
do dispositivo e exige procedimentos de download e manipulação de dados com software
proprietário. Desta forma, o desenvolvimento de sistemas inovadores de monitorização
ambiente baseados em tecnologias ubĂquas e computação mĂłvel que permitam a análise em
tempo real torna-se essencial.
A Tese resultou na definição e no desenvolvimento de arquiteturas para monitorização da
qualidade do ar baseadas em IoT. Os métodos propostos são de baixo custo e recorrem a
estruturas modulares e escaláveis para proporcionar ambientes de vida melhorados. As
arquiteturas propostas abordam vários conceitos, incluindo aquisição, processamento,
armazenamento, análise e visualização de dados. Os métodos propostos incorporam
Frameworks de gestĂŁo de alertas que notificam o utilizador em tempo real e de forma ubĂqua
quando a qualidade do ar interior é deficiente. A estrutura de software suporta vários métodos
de notificação, como notificações remotas para smartphone, SMS (Short Message Service) e email.
O método usado para o envio de notificações em tempo real oferece várias vantagens
quando o objetivo é alcançar mudanças efetivas para ambientes de vida melhorados. Por um
lado, as mensagens de notificação promovem mudanças de comportamento. De facto, estes
alertas permitem que o gestor do edifĂcio e os ocupantes reconheçam padrões da qualidade do
ar e permitem também um correto planeamento de intervenções de forma evitar situações em
que a qualidade do ar Ă© deficiente. Por outro lado, o sistema proposto incorpora tecnologias
de computação móvel, como aplicações móveis, que fornecem acesso omnipresente aos dados
de qualidade do ar e, consequentemente, fornecem soluções completas para análise de dados.
Além disso, os dados são armazenados e podem ser partilhados com equipas médicas para
ajudar no diagnĂłstico.
A análise do estado da arte resultou na elaboração de um artigo de revisão sobre as tecnologias,
aplicações, desafios, plataformas e sistemas operativos que envolvem a criação de arquiteturas
IoT. Esta revisão foi um trabalho fundamental na definição das arquiteturas propostas baseado em IoT para a supervisão da qualidade do ar interior. Esta pesquisa conduz a um
desenvolvimento de arquiteturas IoT de baixo custo com base em tecnologias de cĂłdigo aberto
que operam como um sistema Wi-Fi e suportam várias vantagens, como modularidade,
escalabilidade e facilidade de instalação. Os resultados obtidos são muito promissores,
representando uma contribuição significativa para ambientes de vida melhorados e saúde
ocupacional.
O material particulado (PM) Ă© uma mistura complexa de partĂculas sĂłlidas e lĂquidas de
substâncias orgânicas e inorgânicas suspensas no ar e é considerado o poluente que afeta mais
pessoas. As partĂculas mais prejudiciais Ă saĂşde sĂŁo as ≤PM10 (diâmetro de 10 micrĂłmetros ou
menos), que podem penetrar e fixarem-se dentro dos pulmões, contribuindo para o risco de
desenvolver doenças cardiovasculares e respiratórias, bem como de cancro do pulmão. Tendo
em consideração os efeitos negativos para a saúde da exposição ao PM foi desenvolvido numa
primeira fase uma arquitetura IoT para monitorização automática dos nĂveis de PM. Esta
arquitetura é um sistema que permite monitorização de PM em tempo real e uma ferramenta
de apoio à tomada de decisão. A solução é composta por um protótipo de hardware para
aquisição de dados e um portal Web desenvolvido em .NET para consulta de dados. Este sistema
é baseado em tecnologias de código aberto com várias vantagens em comparação aos sistemas
existentes, como modularidade, escalabilidade, baixo custo e fácil instalação. Os dados são
armazenados numa base de dados desenvolvida em SQL SERVER e sĂŁo enviados com recurso a
serviços Web. Os resultados mostram a capacidade do sistema de analisar em tempo real a
qualidade do ar interior e o potencial da Framework Web para o planeamento de intervenções
com o objetivo de garantir condições seguras, saudáveis e confortáveis.
Associações de altas concentrações de dióxido de carbono (CO2) com défice de produtividade
no trabalho e aumento de problemas de saĂşde encontram-se bem documentadas. Existe
tambĂ©m uma correlação evidente entre altos nĂveis de CO2 e altas concentrações de poluentes
no ar interior. Tendo em conta a influência significativa do CO2 para a construção de ambientes
de vida melhorados desenvolveu-se uma solução de monitorização em tempo real de CO2 com
base na arquitetura de IoT. A arquitetura proposta permite também o envio de notificações em
tempo real para melhorar a saĂşde ocupacional e proporcionar um ambiente de vida interior
seguro e saudável. O CO2 foi selecionado, pois é fácil de medir e é produzido em quantidade
(por pessoas e equipamentos de combustĂŁo). Assim, pode ser usado como um indicador de
outros poluentes e, portanto, da qualidade do ar em geral. O método proposto é composto por
um protótipo de hardware para aquisição de dados, um software Web e uma aplicação
smartphone para consulta de dados. Esta arquitetura Ă© baseada em tecnologias de cĂłdigo
aberto e os dados recolhidos sĂŁo armazenados numa base de dados SQL SERVER. A Framework
mĂłvel permite nĂŁo sĂł consultar em tempo real os Ăşltimos dados recolhidos, receber
notificações com o objetivo de avisar o utilizador quando a qualidade do ar está deficiente,
mas também para configurar alertas. Os resultados mostram que a Framework móvel fornece não apenas acesso fácil aos dados da qualidade do ar em tempo real, mas também permite ao
utilizador manter o histórico de parâmetros. Assim este sistema permite ao utilizador analisar
de maneira precisa e detalhada o comportamento da qualidade do ar interior.
Por último, é proposta uma arquitetura para monitorização de vários parâmetros da qualidade
do ar, como NH3 (amonĂaco), CO (monĂłxido de carbono), NO2 (diĂłxido de azoto), C3H8
(propano), C4H10 (butano), CH4 (metano), H2 (hidrogénio) e C2H5OH (etanol). Esta arquitetura é
composta por um protĂłtipo de hardware que incorpora unicamente o sensor MICS-6814 como
unidade de deteção. O controlo das concentrações destes poluentes é extremamente relevante
para proporcionar ambientes de vida melhorados. Esta solução tem base na Cloud sendo que os
dados recolhidos sĂŁo enviados para a plataforma ThingSpeak. Esta Framework combina
sensibilidade, flexibilidade e precisão de medição em tempo real, permitindo uma evolução
significativa dos atuais sistemas de monitorização da qualidade do ar. Os resultados mostram
que este sistema fornece acesso fácil, intuitivo e rápido aos dados de qualidade do ar bem
como notificações essenciais em situações de qualidade do ar deficiente de forma a planear
intervenções em tempo útil e melhorar a saúde ocupacional. Esses dados podem ser acedidos
pelos médicos para apoiar diagnósticos e correlacionar os sintomas e problemas de saúde dos
pacientes com o ambiente em que estes vivem.
Como trabalho futuro, os resultados reportados nesta Tese podem ser considerados um ponto
de partida para o desenvolvimento de um sistema seguro para partilha de dados com
profissionais de saĂşde de forma a servir de suporte Ă decisĂŁo no diagnĂłstico
Context-awareness for mobile sensing: a survey and future directions
The evolution of smartphones together with increasing computational power have empowered developers to create innovative context-aware applications for recognizing user related social and cognitive activities in any situation and at any location. The existence and awareness of the context provides the capability of being conscious of physical environments or situations around mobile device users. This allows network services to respond proactively and intelligently based on such awareness. The key idea behind context-aware applications is to encourage users to collect, analyze and share local sensory knowledge in the purpose for a large scale community use by creating a smart network. The desired network is capable of making autonomous logical decisions to actuate environmental objects, and also assist individuals. However, many open challenges remain, which are mostly arisen due to the middleware services provided in mobile devices have limited resources in terms of power, memory and bandwidth. Thus, it becomes critically important to study how the drawbacks can be elaborated and resolved, and at the same time better understand the opportunities for the research community to contribute to the context-awareness. To this end, this paper surveys the literature over the period of 1991-2014 from the emerging concepts to applications of context-awareness in mobile platforms by providing up-to-date research and future research directions. Moreover, it points out the challenges faced in this regard and enlighten them by proposing possible solutions
Smart system for children's chronic illness monitoring
[EN] Sick children need a continuous monitoring, but this involves high costs for the government and for the parents. The use of information and communication technologies (ICT) jointly with artificial intelligence and smart devices can reduce these costs, help the children and assist their parents. This paper presents a smart architecture for children's chronic illness monitoring that will let the caregivers (parents, teachers and doctors) to remotely monitor the health of the children based on the sensors embedded in the smartphones and smart wearable devices. The proposed architecture includes a smart algorithm developed to intelligently detect if a parameter has exceeded a threshold, thus it may imply an emergency or not. To check the correct operation of this system, we have developed a small wearable device that is able to measure the heart rate and the body temperature. We have designed a secure mechanism to stablish a Bluetooth connection with the smartphone. In addition, the system is able to perform the data fusion in both the information packetizing process, which contributes to improve the protocol performance, and in the measured values combination, where it is used a stochastic approach. As a result, our system can fusion data from different sensors in real-time and detect automatically strange situations for sending a warning to the caregivers. Finally, the consumed bandwidth and battery autonomy of the developed device have been measured.This work has been partially supported by the "Ministerio de EducaciOn, Cultura y Deporte", through the "Ayudas para contratos predoctorales de Formacion del Profesorado Universitario FPU (Convocatoria 2014)". Grant number FPU14/02953.Sendra, S.; Parra-Boronat, L.; Lloret, J.; Tomás Gironés, J. (2018). Smart system for children's chronic illness monitoring. Information Fusion. 40:76-86. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.inffus.2017.06.002S76864
Multi-sensor data fusion in mobile devices for the identification of Activities of Daily Living
Following the recent advances in technology and the growing use of mobile devices such as
smartphones, several solutions may be developed to improve the quality of life of users in the
context of Ambient Assisted Living (AAL). Mobile devices have different available sensors, e.g.,
accelerometer, gyroscope, magnetometer, microphone and Global Positioning System (GPS)
receiver, which allow the acquisition of physical and physiological parameters for the
recognition of different Activities of Daily Living (ADL) and the environments in which they are
performed. The definition of ADL includes a well-known set of tasks, which include basic selfcare
tasks, based on the types of skills that people usually learn in early childhood, including
feeding, bathing, dressing, grooming, walking, running, jumping, climbing stairs, sleeping,
watching TV, working, listening to music, cooking, eating and others. On the context of AAL,
some individuals (henceforth called user or users) need particular assistance, either because
the user has some sort of impairment, or because the user is old, or simply because users
need/want to monitor their lifestyle. The research and development of systems that provide a
particular assistance to people is increasing in many areas of application. In particular, in the
future, the recognition of ADL will be an important element for the development of a personal
digital life coach, providing assistance to different types of users. To support the recognition
of ADL, the surrounding environments should be also recognized to increase the reliability of
these systems.
The main focus of this Thesis is the research on methods for the fusion and classification of the
data acquired by the sensors available in off-the-shelf mobile devices in order to recognize ADL
in almost real-time, taking into account the large diversity of the capabilities and
characteristics of the mobile devices available in the market. In order to achieve this objective,
this Thesis started with the review of the existing methods and technologies to define the
architecture and modules of the method for the identification of ADL. With this review and
based on the knowledge acquired about the sensors available in off-the-shelf mobile devices,
a set of tasks that may be reliably identified was defined as a basis for the remaining research
and development to be carried out in this Thesis. This review also identified the main stages
for the development of a new method for the identification of the ADL using the sensors
available in off-the-shelf mobile devices; these stages are data acquisition, data processing,
data cleaning, data imputation, feature extraction, data fusion and artificial intelligence. One
of the challenges is related to the different types of data acquired from the different sensors,
but other challenges were found, including the presence of environmental noise, the positioning
of the mobile device during the daily activities, the limited capabilities of the mobile devices
and others. Based on the acquired data, the processing was performed, implementing data
cleaning and feature extraction methods, in order to define a new framework for the recognition of ADL. The data imputation methods were not applied, because at this stage of
the research their implementation does not have influence in the results of the identification
of the ADL and environments, as the features are extracted from a set of data acquired during
a defined time interval and there are no missing values during this stage. The joint selection of
the set of usable sensors and the identifiable set of tasks will then allow the development of a
framework that, considering multi-sensor data fusion technologies and context awareness, in
coordination with other information available from the user context, such as his/her agenda
and the time of the day, will allow to establish a profile of the tasks that the user performs in
a regular activity day. The classification method and the algorithm for the fusion of the features
for the recognition of ADL and its environments needs to be deployed in a machine with some
computational power, while the mobile device that will use the created framework, can
perform the identification of the ADL using a much less computational power. Based on the
results reported in the literature, the method chosen for the recognition of the ADL is composed
by three variants of Artificial Neural Networks (ANN), including simple Multilayer Perceptron
(MLP) networks, Feedforward Neural Networks (FNN) with Backpropagation, and Deep Neural
Networks (DNN).
Data acquisition can be performed with standard methods. After the acquisition, the data must
be processed at the data processing stage, which includes data cleaning and feature extraction
methods. The data cleaning method used for motion and magnetic sensors is the low pass filter,
in order to reduce the noise acquired; but for the acoustic data, the Fast Fourier Transform
(FFT) was applied to extract the different frequencies. When the data is clean, several features
are then extracted based on the types of sensors used, including the mean, standard deviation,
variance, maximum value, minimum value and median of raw data acquired from the motion
and magnetic sensors; the mean, standard deviation, variance and median of the maximum
peaks calculated with the raw data acquired from the motion and magnetic sensors; the five
greatest distances between the maximum peaks calculated with the raw data acquired from
the motion and magnetic sensors; the mean, standard deviation, variance, median and 26 Mel-
Frequency Cepstral Coefficients (MFCC) of the frequencies obtained with FFT based on the raw
data acquired from the microphone data; and the distance travelled calculated with the data
acquired from the GPS receiver. After the extraction of the features, these will be grouped in
different datasets for the application of the ANN methods and to discover the method and
dataset that reports better results. The classification stage was incrementally developed,
starting with the identification of the most common ADL (i.e., walking, running, going upstairs,
going downstairs and standing activities) with motion and magnetic sensors. Next, the
environments were identified with acoustic data, i.e., bedroom, bar, classroom, gym, kitchen,
living room, hall, street and library. After the environments are recognized, and based on the
different sets of sensors commonly available in the mobile devices, the data acquired from the
motion and magnetic sensors were combined with the recognized environment in order to
differentiate some activities without motion, i.e., sleeping and watching TV. The number of recognized activities in this stage was increased with the use of the distance travelled,
extracted from the GPS receiver data, allowing also to recognize the driving activity.
After the implementation of the three classification methods with different numbers of
iterations, datasets and remaining configurations in a machine with high processing
capabilities, the reported results proved that the best method for the recognition of the most
common ADL and activities without motion is the DNN method, but the best method for the
recognition of environments is the FNN method with Backpropagation. Depending on the
number of sensors used, this implementation reports a mean accuracy between 85.89% and
89.51% for the recognition of the most common ADL, equals to 86.50% for the recognition of
environments, and equals to 100% for the recognition of activities without motion, reporting
an overall accuracy between 85.89% and 92.00%.
The last stage of this research work was the implementation of the structured framework for
the mobile devices, verifying that the FNN method requires a high processing power for the
recognition of environments and the results reported with the mobile application are lower
than the results reported with the machine with high processing capabilities used. Thus, the
DNN method was also implemented for the recognition of the environments with the mobile
devices. Finally, the results reported with the mobile devices show an accuracy between 86.39%
and 89.15% for the recognition of the most common ADL, equal to 45.68% for the recognition
of environments, and equal to 100% for the recognition of activities without motion, reporting
an overall accuracy between 58.02% and 89.15%.
Compared with the literature, the results returned by the implemented framework show only
a residual improvement. However, the results reported in this research work comprehend the
identification of more ADL than the ones described in other studies. The improvement in the
recognition of ADL based on the mean of the accuracies is equal to 2.93%, but the maximum
number of ADL and environments previously recognized was 13, while the number of ADL and
environments recognized with the framework resulting from this research is 16. In conclusion,
the framework developed has a mean improvement of 2.93% in the accuracy of the recognition
for a larger number of ADL and environments than previously reported.
In the future, the achievements reported by this PhD research may be considered as a start
point of the development of a personal digital life coach, but the number of ADL and
environments recognized by the framework should be increased and the experiments should be
performed with different types of devices (i.e., smartphones and smartwatches), and the data
imputation and other machine learning methods should be explored in order to attempt to
increase the reliability of the framework for the recognition of ADL and its environments.Após os recentes avanços tecnológicos e o crescente uso dos dispositivos móveis, como por
exemplo os smartphones, várias soluções podem ser desenvolvidas para melhorar a qualidade
de vida dos utilizadores no contexto de Ambientes de Vida Assistida (AVA) ou Ambient Assisted
Living (AAL). Os dispositivos móveis integram vários sensores, tais como acelerómetro,
giroscĂłpio, magnetĂłmetro, microfone e recetor de Sistema de Posicionamento Global (GPS),
que permitem a aquisição de vários parâmetros fĂsicos e fisiolĂłgicos para o reconhecimento de
diferentes Atividades da Vida Diária (AVD) e os seus ambientes. A definição de AVD inclui um
conjunto bem conhecido de tarefas que são tarefas básicas de autocuidado, baseadas nos tipos
de habilidades que as pessoas geralmente aprendem na infância. Essas tarefas incluem
alimentar-se, tomar banho, vestir-se, fazer os cuidados pessoais, caminhar, correr, pular, subir
escadas, dormir, ver televisĂŁo, trabalhar, ouvir mĂşsica, cozinhar, comer, entre outras. No
contexto de AVA, alguns indivĂduos (comumente chamados de utilizadores) precisam de
assistĂŞncia particular, seja porque o utilizador tem algum tipo de deficiĂŞncia, seja porque Ă©
idoso, ou simplesmente porque o utilizador precisa/quer monitorizar e treinar o seu estilo de
vida. A investigação e desenvolvimento de sistemas que fornecem algum tipo de assistência
particular está em crescente em muitas áreas de aplicação. Em particular, no futuro, o
reconhecimento das AVD Ă© uma parte importante para o desenvolvimento de um assistente
pessoal digital, fornecendo uma assistĂŞncia pessoal de baixo custo aos diferentes tipos de
pessoas. pessoas. Para ajudar no reconhecimento das AVD, os ambientes em que estas se
desenrolam devem ser reconhecidos para aumentar a fiabilidade destes sistemas.
O foco principal desta Tese é o desenvolvimento de métodos para a fusão e classificação dos
dados adquiridos a partir dos sensores disponĂveis nos dispositivos mĂłveis, para o
reconhecimento quase em tempo real das AVD, tendo em consideração a grande diversidade
das caracterĂsticas dos dispositivos mĂłveis disponĂveis no mercado. Para atingir este objetivo,
esta Tese iniciou-se com a revisão dos métodos e tecnologias existentes para definir a
arquitetura e os módulos do novo método de identificação das AVD. Com esta revisão da
literatura e com base no conhecimento adquirido sobre os sensores disponĂveis nos dispositivos
mĂłveis disponĂveis no mercado, um conjunto de tarefas que podem ser identificadas foi
definido para as pesquisas e desenvolvimentos desta Tese. Esta revisão também identifica os
principais conceitos para o desenvolvimento do novo método de identificação das AVD,
utilizando os sensores, são eles: aquisição de dados, processamento de dados, correção de
dados, imputação de dados, extração de caracterĂsticas, fusĂŁo de dados e extração de
resultados recorrendo a métodos de inteligência artificial. Um dos desafios está relacionado
aos diferentes tipos de dados adquiridos pelos diferentes sensores, mas outros desafios foram
encontrados, sendo os mais relevantes o ruĂdo ambiental, o posicionamento do dispositivo durante a realização das atividades diárias, as capacidades limitadas dos dispositivos mĂłveis.
As diferentes caracterĂsticas das pessoas podem igualmente influenciar a criação dos mĂ©todos,
escolhendo pessoas com diferentes estilos de vida e caracterĂsticas fĂsicas para a aquisição e
identificação dos dados adquiridos a partir de sensores. Com base nos dados adquiridos,
realizou-se o processamento dos dados, implementando-se métodos de correção dos dados e a
extração de caracterĂsticas, para iniciar a criação do novo mĂ©todo para o reconhecimento das
AVD. Os mĂ©todos de imputação de dados foram excluĂdos da implementação, pois nĂŁo iriam
influenciar os resultados da identificação das AVD e dos ambientes, na medida em que são
utilizadas as caracterĂsticas extraĂdas de um conjunto de dados adquiridos durante um intervalo
de tempo definido.
A seleção dos sensores utilizáveis, bem como das AVD identificáveis, permitirá o
desenvolvimento de um método que, considerando o uso de tecnologias para a fusão de dados
adquiridos com múltiplos sensores em coordenação com outras informações relativas ao
contexto do utilizador, tais como a agenda do utilizador, permitindo estabelecer um perfil de
tarefas que o utilizador realiza diariamente. Com base nos resultados obtidos na literatura, o
método escolhido para o reconhecimento das AVD são as diferentes variantes das Redes
Neuronais Artificiais (RNA), incluindo Multilayer Perceptron (MLP), Feedforward Neural
Networks (FNN) with Backpropagation and Deep Neural Networks (DNN). No final, apĂłs a
criação dos métodos para cada fase do método para o reconhecimento das AVD e ambientes, a
implementação sequencial dos diferentes métodos foi realizada num dispositivo móvel para
testes adicionais.
Após a definição da estrutura do método para o reconhecimento de AVD e ambientes usando
dispositivos móveis, verificou-se que a aquisição de dados pode ser realizada com os métodos
comuns. Após a aquisição de dados, os mesmos devem ser processados no módulo de
processamento de dados, que inclui os métodos de correção de dados e de extração de
caracterĂsticas. O mĂ©todo de correção de dados utilizado para sensores de movimento e
magnĂ©ticos Ă© o filtro passa-baixo de modo a reduzir o ruĂdo, mas para os dados acĂşsticos, a
Transformada Rápida de Fourier (FFT) foi aplicada para extrair as diferentes frequências.
ApĂłs a correção dos dados, as diferentes caracterĂsticas foram extraĂdas com base nos tipos de
sensores usados, sendo a mĂ©dia, desvio padrĂŁo, variância, valor máximo, valor mĂnimo e
mediana de dados adquiridos pelos sensores magnéticos e de movimento, a média, desvio
padrão, variância e mediana dos picos máximos calculados com base nos dados adquiridos pelos
sensores magnéticos e de movimento, as cinco maiores distâncias entre os picos máximos
calculados com os dados adquiridos dos sensores de movimento e magnéticos, a média, desvio
padrão, variância e 26 Mel-Frequency Cepstral Coefficients (MFCC) das frequências obtidas
com FFT com base nos dados obtidos a partir do microfone, e a distância calculada com os
dados adquiridos pelo recetor de GPS. ApĂłs a extração das caracterĂsticas, as mesmas sĂŁo agrupadas em diferentes conjuntos de dados
para a aplicação dos métodos de RNA de modo a descobrir o método e o conjunto de
caracterĂsticas que reporta melhores resultados. O mĂłdulo de classificação de dados foi
incrementalmente desenvolvido, começando com a identificação das AVD comuns com sensores
magnéticos e de movimento, i.e., andar, correr, subir escadas, descer escadas e parado. Em
seguida, os ambientes sĂŁo identificados com dados de sensores acĂşsticos, i.e., quarto, bar, sala
de aula, ginásio, cozinha, sala de estar, hall, rua e biblioteca. Com base nos ambientes
reconhecidos e os restantes sensores disponĂveis nos dispositivos mĂłveis, os dados adquiridos
dos sensores magnéticos e de movimento foram combinados com o ambiente reconhecido para
diferenciar algumas atividades sem movimento (i.e., dormir e ver televisĂŁo), onde o nĂşmero
de atividades reconhecidas nesta fase aumenta com a fusĂŁo da distância percorrida, extraĂda
a partir dos dados do recetor GPS, permitindo também reconhecer a atividade de conduzir.
Após a implementação dos três métodos de classificação com diferentes números de iterações,
conjuntos de dados e configurações numa máquina com alta capacidade de processamento, os
resultados relatados provaram que o melhor método para o reconhecimento das atividades
comuns de AVD e atividades sem movimento é o método DNN, mas o melhor método para o
reconhecimento de ambientes é o método FNN with Backpropagation. Dependendo do número
de sensores utilizados, esta implementação reporta uma exatidão média entre 85,89% e 89,51%
para o reconhecimento das AVD comuns, igual a 86,50% para o reconhecimento de ambientes,
e igual a 100% para o reconhecimento de atividades sem movimento, reportando uma exatidĂŁo
global entre 85,89% e 92,00%.
A última etapa desta Tese foi a implementação do método nos dispositivos móveis, verificando
que o método FNN requer um alto poder de processamento para o reconhecimento de
ambientes e os resultados reportados com estes dispositivos sĂŁo inferiores aos resultados
reportados com a máquina com alta capacidade de processamento utilizada no
desenvolvimento do método. Assim, o método DNN foi igualmente implementado para o
reconhecimento dos ambientes com os dispositivos mĂłveis. Finalmente, os resultados relatados
com os dispositivos mĂłveis reportam uma exatidĂŁo entre 86,39% e 89,15% para o
reconhecimento das AVD comuns, igual a 45,68% para o reconhecimento de ambientes, e igual
a 100% para o reconhecimento de atividades sem movimento, reportando uma exatidĂŁo geral
entre 58,02% e 89,15%.
Com base nos resultados relatados na literatura, os resultados do método desenvolvido mostram
uma melhoria residual, mas os resultados desta Tese identificam mais AVD que os demais
estudos disponĂveis na literatura. A melhoria no reconhecimento das AVD com base na mĂ©dia
das exatidões é igual a 2,93%, mas o número máximo de AVD e ambientes reconhecidos pelos
estudos disponĂveis na literatura Ă© 13, enquanto o nĂşmero de AVD e ambientes reconhecidos
com o método implementado é 16. Assim, o método desenvolvido tem uma melhoria de 2,93%
na exatidĂŁo do reconhecimento num maior nĂşmero de AVD e ambientes. Como trabalho futuro, os resultados reportados nesta Tese podem ser considerados um ponto
de partida para o desenvolvimento de um assistente digital pessoal, mas o nĂşmero de ADL e
ambientes reconhecidos pelo método deve ser aumentado e as experiências devem ser
repetidas com diferentes tipos de dispositivos mĂłveis (i.e., smartphones e smartwatches), e os
métodos de imputação e outros métodos de classificação de dados devem ser explorados de
modo a tentar aumentar a confiabilidade do método para o reconhecimento das AVD e
ambientes
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