Abstract
Researches in the field of ambient assisted living (AAL) have increased in the last ten years, and the paradigms of the smart home have widely spread. Smart homes must consider the health-related issues and the real needs deriving from the ageing of their dwellers. In the smart home, appliances are expected to provide support to the residents, especially when they are characterized by disabilities and/or impairments related to ageing. While most of the AAL solutions presented in literature rely on complex systems and architectures, residents affected by mild or moderate disabilities can take advantage of just a simpler reconfiguration of living environments, i.e., the replacement of certain appliances with others that are able to help them in coping with their limitations. This paper proposes a semantic-based decision support system (DSS), which relies on ontological models, to assist designers in domestic environments’ reconfiguration. The ontology leverages semantic representations of dwellers and domestic environments’ domains of knowledge to foster the adoption of appliances able to help the residents to live independently. The development process of the ontology is presented in detail together with the results deriving from reasoning processes. To ease the reconfiguration of domestic environments, a prototypical application taking advantage of the DSS is presented.
Highlights
The research in the fields of smart home, ambient assisted living (AAL) and domestic healthcare has strongly increased during the last ten years
Highest scores are reported on items 8 (“Interacting with the system does not require a lot of my mental effort”), 9 (“I find the system to be easy to use”), and 10
The development of a Decision Support System (DSS) for the reconfiguration of a domestic environment is presented; while most of AAL solutions rely on complex systems and architectures, the DSS suggests a set of appliances to support residents affected by mild or moderate disabilities, enabling a simpler reconfiguration of living environments
Summary
The research in the fields of smart home, ambient assisted living (AAL) and domestic healthcare has strongly increased during the last ten years. Of the European population over the forthcoming decades [1] This segment of population is often characterized by a loss of independence in several activities of daily living (due to functional limitations or to the onset of disabilities), and by a diminishing sense of safety—which could potentially lead to injuries while performing activities inside the house [2]. In this context, the smart home is expected to deliver to its inhabitants tailored services able to assist the dwellers for a better, healthier and safer life in their everyday living environment. The user-friendliness of the devices and the need for training dedicate to older residents in the use and management of the Electronics 2018, 7, 179; doi:10.3390/electronics7090179 www.mdpi.com/journal/electronics
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