Abstract
Numerous researchers are working on Ambient Assisted Living systems to enable more comfortable and safer living for senior people in their homes. Due to modern lifestyles and an aging population, this has become a very important issue. According to the available literature, it is obvious that the kitchen is one of the most important and most dangerous rooms in the home. However, there is still evident lack of monitoring systems suitable for specific kitchen activities. In this paper, we propose a monitoring system capable of identifying activities related to the cooking process, and a decision-making system capable of identifying some unwanted and possibly critical conditions. The proposed systems are designed to satisfy the requirements of the modern Ambient Assisted Living systems dedicated to older adults. The proposed monitoring system consists of ultrasound, temperature, and humidity sensors. The acquired results from these sensors are the inputs for the decision-making system, which generate warnings or alarms intended for the senior users and/or formal or informal caregivers. This system is designed to improve home safety related to kitchen activities, as well as to provide information about the lifestyle and daily activities of senior users. Experimental validation of the proposed system confirms its functionality and accurate design approach.
Highlights
The aging human population is a well-known problem in developed countries, and things are becoming more complicated
Special attention is given to the performance of the notification system that is essential for successful finalization of the cooking process
We found that overall experimental results fully correspond to the expected behavior of the system in all test scenarios
Summary
The aging human population is a well-known problem in developed countries, and things are becoming more complicated. Many circumstances, such as healthier lifestyles, improved education, effective birth control, and the growth of the global population have caused the share of the people aged 65 or over to increase. “The share of people aged 65 years or over in the total population is projected to increase from 17.1% to 30.0% and the number is projected to rise from 84.6 million in 2008 to 151.5 million in 2060. The number of people aged 80 years or over is projected to almost triple from 21.8 million in 2008 to 61.4 million in 2060” [1]. There is a very similar trend in other developed countries
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