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The CONFIDENCE project has developed a care system that is able to reconstruct a person’s posture and detect abnormal situations, such as falls or loss of consciousness. The system raises an alarm if an abnormal situation is detected.
This care system is also able to detect changes in the user’s behaviour and issue a warning. For instance, if the system notices changes in the user’s gait that may involve a lack of stability, the CONFIDENCE system warns the user about an increased risk of falling, and prevent an accident. Detection of anomalous behaviour utilises prior expert knowledge as well as learnt movement patterns of particular users.
An important characteristic of CONFIDENCE is that it adapts itself to the user. One of the goals of the CONFIDENCE care system is to introduce only small and low cost changes in the user’s home.
The CONFIDENCE system is easy to use, so that it does not limit the user’s daily activity. As it can be seen in the next figure, the system consists of a central device, which plays the role of a base-station (BS), a small portable device (PD), which looks similar to a mobile phone, and several tags.
The base-station is placed inside the house and could be designed to look like a decorative item. It is able to determine the position of each tag in the three dimensional (3D) space.
The portable device,which is basically a smart-phone,
is the interface of the system with the user.
The user will have to wear small size tags,
either in the form of bracelets to be worn in wrists and ankles or in the form of necklaces.
If the user prefers it, the tags may be sewed into the clothes (socks, underwear, etc.).
Some other small devices may be needed indoors in order to increase the accuracy of the system.
These devices will be placed in specific positions such as the bed, chairs or some other pieces of furniture.
Typically, the CONFIDENCE system follows the following alarm protocol: first, it makes a phone call to the user. If the user picks up the phone, he/she is requested to indicate that he/she feels well by pressing a button. This stops the alarm. This way, the user keeps control of the system, which is an important feature and considerably reduces the false alarm rate.
The user decides who the system is calling in case of an alarm or warning: a relative, friend or to the emergency services. If the user does not pick up the phone in a certain time, the system makes a phone call to the first telephone in the list provided by the user. If nobody answers the phone, the system will call the following telephone in this alarm receiver list. The system will explain to the call recipient the reasons of the alarm or warning.
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