An embedded framework enabling access of elderly and disabled persons to IP-based emergency communications

Abstract

Being able to perform promptly and accurate emergency calls is crucial for every human life. However, people with impairments feel precluded when there is need to have access to emergency centers. The main reason is the absence of IP-based emergency systems triggered by assistive devices and body area networks. To guarantee that anyone can benefit from emergency systems, it is essential to enable embedded devices to trigger calls to emergency centers and support IP-based real time communication. To achieve this, the present paper extends SEEK framework (Andriopoulou et al., 2018), an embedded framework consisting of environmental, body sensors and a haptic device. SEEK framework enables elderly and disabled people who live independent to perform emergency calls. Sensors embedded in SEEK, aggregate environmental data and vital signs that monitor user's current health status 7and automatically trigger emergency calls when an emergency occurs, providing continuous real-time sensor data. The haptic device provides further modalities to the end user (disabled person or elderly) supporting audio, media and text communication with first responders and healthcare providers at emergency centers. A prototype implementation and initial results are presented as a proof of concept for deaf and speech impaired people enabling them to report emergency events and establish real time communication with first responders. The results depict that even lower capability hardware platforms may be used in order to minimize the cost and increase usability by minimizing power consumption of such an embedded framework.