DETIThis paper describes the B-Live® system targetted to automate house appliances for
severely impaired people, in particular quadriplegic. This system has been developed
at Micro I/O for enhancing the quality of life and the independence of its potential
users. The envisaged application is the retrofitting of common dwellings.
The B-Live system is described and details on its software, hardware and CAN-based
communications architecture are provided. A survey of the supported appliances and
interfaces is presented as well as a description of the B-live configuration and
operation procedures. The adequacy of the B-Live system to improve the autonomy of
the envisaged users was informally evaluated by C5 and C6 patients at a
demonstration house located in the CMRRC Rovisco Pais, a rehabilitation center near
Aveiro, in Portugal. The conclusion is that the system has a short learning curve and
can cope with the requirements of its potential users. The use of CAN in this
application opens the possibility to include safety critical real-time systems in the BLive system. This is the case of the monitoring of the ventilator used for quadriplegic people that require breath assistance
