From Smart Homes To Smart Care

Nowadays networks, microprocessors, memory chips, smart sensors and actuators are faster, cheaper and smaller than ever. They are becoming available anywhere, anytime. Current advances in such enabling technologies let foresee novel applications and services for improving the life of elderly and disabled people in their home and outside. These conference proceedings present the latest approaches and technical solutions in the area of smart homes, health telematics, and enabling technologies. The first chapter delves into the user perspective to ascertain real needs and design truly useful services. The following chapter explores the enabling technology. Distributed sensors, smart devices and networks appear as the nuts and bolts compulsory to build up smart homes. Chapter three looks at the realization of smart homes. Pervasive computing is emerging as one of the key approaches to organize computations within smart homes. The fourth chapter addresses the issue of using smart home features to design and deliver smart care services to persons with disabilities and elderly people. Finally Chapter five outlines standardization efforts and practical and industrial experiences. ICOST aims at creating an active research community dedicated to explore how smart homes in particular and health telematics in general can foster independent living and an enhanced life style for elderly and disabled people. On the one hand, smart homes are augmented environments with embedded computers, information appliances and multi-modal sensors allowing people to perform tasks efficiently by offering unprecedented levels of access to information and assistance from computer. On the other hand, health telematics makes the most of networks and telecommunications to propose health services, expertise and information at distance.

Smart homes, home automation and ambient-assisted living are terms used to describe technological systems that enrich our living environment and provide means to support care, facilitate well-being and improve comfort. This handbook provides an overview of the domain from the perspective of health care and technology. In Part 1, we set out to describe the demographic changes in society, including ageing and diseases and impairments which lead to the needs for technological solutions. In Part 2, we describe the technological solutions, ranging from sensor-based networks, components, to communication protocols that are used in the design of smart homes. We also deal will biomedical features which can be measured and services that can be delivered to end-users as well as the use of social robots. In Part 3, we present best practices in the field. These best practices mainly focus on existing projects in Europe, the USA and Asia, in which people receive help through dedicated technological solutions being part of the continuum of the home environment and care.

Based on the thought to continue to develop an active research community dedicated to explore how Smart Homes and Health Telematics can foster independent living. This work focuses on promoting personal autonomy and extending the quality of life by considering including smart services inside and outside of the home.

This book constitutes the refereed proceedings of the 6th International Conference On Smart Homes and and Health Telematics, ICOST 2008, held in Ames, IA, USA, in June/July 2008. The 24 revised full papers presented were carefully reviewed and selected from 54 submissions. The papers are organized in topical sections on assistive technology to improve quality of life for older adults and their caregivers; context awareness/autonomous computing; devices, systems and algorithms for vision/hearing/cognitive/communication impairments; home health monitoring and intervention; human-machine interface and ambient intelligence; modeling of physical and conceptual information in intelligent environments; real world deployments and experiences in smart homes, hospitals, and living communities; and social/privacy/security issues.

Smart homes, home automation and ambient-assisted living are terms used to describe technological systems that enrich our living environment and provide means to support care, facilitate well-being and improve comfort. This handbook provides an overview of the domain from the perspective of health care and technology. In Part 1, we set out to describe the demographic changes in society, including ageing, and diseases and impairments which lead to the needs for technological solutions. In Part 2, we describe the technological solutions, ranging from sensor-based networks, components, to communication protocols that are used in the design of smart homes. We also deal will biomedical features which can be measured, and services that can be delivered to end-users as well as the use of social robots. In Part 3, we present best practices in the field. These best practices mainly focus on existing projects in Europe, the USA and Asia, in which people receive help through dedicated technological solutions being part of the continuum of the home environment and care. In Part 4, we describe the preconditions to successful ambient-assisted living, including policies, the roles of professionals and organisational needs, design aspects and human factors, the needs of users, laws, business cases, and education.

"This book covers the cutting-edge aspects of AMI applications, specifically those involving the effective design, realization, and implementation of a comprehensive ambient intelligence in smart environments"--

Smart homes are proving to be an emergent area which attracts the synergy of several areas of science. This volume offers a collection of contributions addressing how artificial intelligence (AI), one of the core areas of computer science, can bring the growing area of smart homes to a higher level of functionality where homes can truly realize the long standing dream of proactively helping their inhabitants in an intelligent way.

Smart homes are intelligent environments that interact dynamically and respond readily in an adaptive manner to the needs of the occupants and changes in the ambient conditions. The realization of systems that support the smart homes concept requires integration of technologies from different fields. Among the challenges that the designers face is to make all the components of the system interact in a seamless, reliable and secure manner. Another major challenge is to design the smart home in a way that takes into account the way humans live and interact. This later aspect requires input from the humanities and social sciences fields. The need for input from diverse fields of knowledge reflects the multidisciplinary nature of the research and development effort required to realize smart homes that are acceptable to the general public. The applications that can be supported by a smart home are very wide and their degree of sophistication depends on the underlying technology used. Some of the application areas include monitoring and control of appliances, security, telemedicine, entertainment, location based services, care for children and the elderly... etc. This book consists of eleven chapters that cover various aspects of smart home systems.