Unidade de Investigação - INESCC-DL – Instituto de Engenharia de Sistemas e Computadores de Coimbra [delegação Politécnico de Leiria]
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- Blind Guide: An Ultrasound Sensor-based Body Area Network for Guiding Blind PeoplePublication . Pereira, António; Nunes, Nelson; Vieira, Daniel; Costa, Nuno; Fernandes, Hugo; Barroso, JoãoWireless Sensor Networks, in particular Wireless Body Area Networks, is a technology suggested by the research community as allowing elderly people, or people with some kind of disability, to live in a safer, responsive and comfortable environment while at their homes. One of the most active threats to the autonomous life of blind people is the quantity and variety of obstacles they face while moving, whether they are obstacles in the footpath or obstacles coming out from the walls of buildings. Hence, it is necessary to develop a solution that helps or assists blind people while moving either in indoor or outdoor scenarios, simultaneously allowing the use of the use of white cane or the Seeing Eye dog. In this article, the authors propose the use of an ultra-sound based body area network for obstacle detection and warning as a complementary and effective solution for aiding blind people when moving from place to place. According to the cost estimates of the solution and to the negligible setup time, this could be a real effective complementary solution for blind people.
- A distributed multiagent system architecture for body area networks applied to healthcare monitoringPublication . Felisberto, Filipe; Laza, Rosalía; Fdez-Riverola, Florentino; Pereira, AntónioIn the last years the area of health monitoring has grown significantly, attracting the attention of both academia and commercial sectors. At the same time, the availability of new biomedical sensors and suitable network protocols has led to the appearance of a new generation of wireless sensor networks, the so-called wireless body area networks. Nowadays, these networks are routinely used for continuous monitoring of vital parameters, movement, and the surrounding environment of people, but the large volume of data generated in different locations represents a major obstacle for the appropriate design, development, and deployment of more elaborated intelligent systems. In this context, we present an open and distributed architecture based on a multiagent system for recognizing human movements, identifying human postures, and detecting harmful activities. The proposed system evolved from a single node for fall detection to a multisensor hardware solution capable of identifying unhampered falls and analyzing the users’ movement. The experiments carried out contemplate two different scenarios and demonstrate the accuracy of our proposal as a real distributed movement monitoring and accident detection system. Moreover, we also characterize its performance, enabling future analyses and comparisons with similar approaches.
- Plataforma Unidose para LaresPublication . Lopes, David Ferreira; Costa, Nuno; Pereira, AntónioA esperança média de vida tem aumentado devido às melhorias que se têm verificado nos serviços de saúde e pela evolução da medicina levando a um envelhecimento da população mundial. As famílias com vidas cada vez mais preenchidas e atarefadas não conseguem prestar o auxílio e o apoio necessário aos idosos levando estes a frequentar cada vez mais Lares e Centros de dia para idosos. Isto leva a que exista uma enorme responsabilidade pela saúde dos idosos por parte dos lares que os acolhem sobretudo ao nível da medicação, delegando grandes responsabilidades a funcionários da instituição. Os funcionários como seres humanos erram, podem errar, haver negligência ao darem a toma de medicação aos idosos. Cada vez mais os idosos têm menos capacidades financeiras devido a situação económica do país e alguns acabam mesmo por ter que deixar a medicação para sobreviverem. A Plataforma Unidose para Lares (PUL) é uma solução para tentar contrariar ou resolver estes problemas. É possível utilizar o sistema Unidose, que permite a venda dos comprimidos à unidade torando-se mais económico e também fazendo a prevenção da toma de medicamentos para não permitir negligencias nem faltas de tomas. Com a utilização da plataforma as vidas dos idosos e funcionários de lares vão ficar mais calmas, com menos preocupações, melhorando assim a qualidade de vida destes.
- Removing Barriers to Promote Social Computing among Senior PopulationPublication . Marcelino, Isabel; Laza, Rosalía; Fdez-Riverola, Florentino; Pereira, AntónioSmartphones and tablets proliferation enabled by accessible prices and also by the inclusion of sensing abilities promotes their use in several areas, such as healthcare. It opens new horizons in the field of continuous and noninvasive monitoring and support to population, namely, to seniors. Despite the great benefits that mobile sensing and social computing could provide to increase elderly’s quality of life, many studies have shown that elderlies deal with difficulty with Information and Communication Technology (ICT). In this paper we present a solution to overcome barriers between elderlies and their ICT usage in order to potentiate all the benefits provided from mobile sensing and social computing. A survey on guidelines, standards, and advice regarding usability and accessibility issues when developing solutions for elderly people was carried out. This survey was made having in mind that senior population have singular requirements due to age related changes and also frequently technological illiteracy. We have identified and applied the most important guidelines to our solution. A prototype was made using responsive design in order to be adaptable to any type of devices. Regarding evaluation, usability tests and semistructured interviews were conducted in real scenario.
- Smart Remote Control Design for SeniorsPublication . Pereira, António; Silva, Fernando; Ribeiro, José; Marcelino, Isabel; Barroso, JoãoTechnology is present in almost all aspects of our modern lives, and technological advances have been more and more prevalent. One would expect this to facilitate everybody’s life, rendering common tasks more practical and easier to perform, but that is often not the case - at least not for the elderly. Older people have significant difficulties in using technological equipment due to the visual, physical, cognitive and hearing limitations associated with the natural aging process; these aspects must be taken into account if the intention is that of integrating technology in the lives of the elderly. In order to improve the quality of life of the elderly, as well as to prevent their social isolation, a mobile device application was developed to act as an intelligent remote control. This mobile application deals with data from two different platforms that were previously developed for improving the quality of life of the senior population: HbbTV and +Social. The features built into this virtual remote control include the integration with the +Social platform, as well as a speech recognition mechanism, and the possibility of making and receiving video calls with an integrated contacts list. A comprehensive study was carried out, focusing on recommendations and rules for graphical interfaces for the elderly, so as to allow equipping the application with adequate usability standards. The most relevant result was the definition of a list of guidelines used to steer the development of the interface. An investigation of mechanisms and technologies for enabling the implementation of the required functionalities was also carried out in order to define methodologies for freeing the user from the need of possessing any level of computer literacy. A series of usability tests was also performed to validate the viability of the remote control application. These tests allowed assessing the quality of the application, especially concerning the Graphical User Interface, as well as to receive feedback from potential end users. Based on the data collected during the test phase we conclude that this product is useful and that it responds to a current need.