AAL

New smart objects to improve the quality of life in the ambient assisted living (AAL) scenario are capturing the interest of researchers and companies. In particular, novel assistive technologies are being developed to make accessible street navigation to impaired people. The solution that we propose in this new application domain of intelligent transportation systems is a framework for a safe point-to-point navigation, owing to high-detailed road graphs, including sidewalks, crosswalks, and generic “obstacles.” The system is based on a low-cost modular sensor box (embedded hardware) interfaced with a mobile/phone application that acts as an intelligent navigator. The main novelty is the capability to sense the surrounding area while being able to perform a fast path replanning, owing to a real-time link to a remote server, if an obstacle is detected. The sensing is performed using different sensors, such as ultrasound, lidar, and a 77-GHz mid-range automotive radar (absolutely novel in the AAL context), which are processed and fused in the well-established robot operating system (ROS). We tested the framework by analyzing its performance in two different configurations and environments by using, respectively, a sonar and a laser rangefinder in a building scenario and a radar in an urban environment. Even if in both cases results demonstrated a quite good robustness in the obstacle detection with a quasi-real-time route replanning, we were mainly interested and succeeded in demonstrating the high flexibility and extensibility of our framework.

Together with Katrin Gaßner; a EU-funded empirical market study on products and services available for elderly people in EU-27 that enable and support them to live within their domestic environments in terms of AAL ("Ambient Assisted Living").

L’Europe doit faire face au vieillissement de sa population

Les conséquences de ce  changement démographique représentent un double défi pour l’Union européenne:

      -défi en matière de santé publique

      -défi pour les systèmes de soins aux personnes âgées

AAL est un secteur économique en pleine croissance créant de nouveaux emplois. La complexité de toutes les innovations utiles dans le domaine des AAL a besoin de professionnels qui savent

comment intégrer, installer, le service et utiliser ces dispositifs. Pour cette raison, de nouveaux profils de compétences doivent être mis en place pour les professionnels de divers horizons.

La terminologie AAL (Ambient Assisted Living) concerne l'utilisation de technologies de l'information et de la communication (TIC) dans la vie quotidienne d'une personne et l'environnement

de travail pour lui permettre  de rester actifs plus longtemps, rester socialement connecté et vivre de façon autonome dans la vieillesse .
Les objectifs du projet CompAAL sont de favoriser l’employabilité et prévenir la pénurie de personnels qualifiés dans ce secteur, par l’identification des compétences spécifiques nécessaires au

secteur AAL en Europe, sur la base de l'analyse des besoins du marché

En analysant les besoins du marché, l'Observatoire e-emplois identifie et précise les compétences et les compétences requises pour de nouveaux profils de rôle d'emplois dans les secteurs émergents

de l'économie numérique et les formule selon une méthodologie transparente et cohérente au niveau européen. Outre les compétences en TIC pur requises, les compétences comportementales et

commerciales, «soft skills», sont également identifiés et inclus dans les profils de rôle.

Après l’identification  des aptitudes et compétences des directives de formation sont proposées, axées sur une définition claire des résultats d'apprentissage et en lien avec le dispositif ECVET

Il s’agit donc de proposer des outils visant à améliorer la comparabilité et la reconnaissance ultérieure de ces profils à travers l'UE.

Zusammenfassung Das AAL-Forschungsprojekt SI-Screen hat das Ziel die soziale Interaktion älterer Menschen mit ihrer Familie, Freunden und Bekannten aus der näheren Umgebung zu erleichtern. Vor diesem Hintergrund entsteht der Social Software Integration Layer, eine Middleware welche die Kommunikations-und Interaktionsdienste des Social Webs für mobile Endgeräte zur Verfügung stellt. In diesem Beitrag diskutieren wir unseren Ansatz für die Integration von Social Networking Services und stellen unsere Erkenntnisse ...

1. „Ambient Assisted Living“ und emotionale Robotik als Herausforderung für theologische Ethik und diakonische Praxis
2. Von der Dämonisierung zur Vergötzung moderner Technik?
3. Ethische Bewertung des Einsatzes von PARO
4. Fazit

Robots for the Care for the Elderly? In consideration of the expected great social significance of assistive technologies, it is surprising that both, theological ethics and practical theology previously adopted this issue only very reluctantly. Special ethical reflections are needed on the current development of emotional robots, as they could be used to replace human relationship tasks; tasks, related to the core of human destiny. By referring to four recent ethical publications the author considers the opportunities and risks involved in the using the therapy robot “PARO”.

It is a matter of fact that Europe is facing more and more crucial challenges regarding health and social care due to the demographic change and the current economic context. The recent COVID-19 pandemic has stressed this situation even further, thus highlighting the need for taking action. Active and Assisted Living (AAL) technologies come as a viable approach to help facing these challenges, thanks to the high potential they have in enabling remote care and support. Broadly speaking, AAL can be referred to as the use of innovative and advanced Information and Communication Technologies to create supportive, inclusive and empowering applications and environments that enable older, impaired or frail people to live independently and stay active longer in society. AAL capitalizes on the growing pervasiveness and effectiveness of sensing and computing facilities to supply the persons in need with smart assistance, by responding to their necessities of autonomy, independence, comfort, security and safety. The application scenarios addressed by AAL are complex, due to the inherent heterogeneity of the end-user population, their living arrangements, and their physical conditions or impairment. Despite aiming at diverse goals, AAL systems should share some common characteristics. They are designed to provide support in daily life in an invisible, unobtrusive and user-friendly manner. Moreover, they are conceived to be intelligent, to be able to learn and adapt to the requirements and requests of the assisted people, and to synchronise with their specific needs. Nevertheless, to ensure the uptake of AAL in society, potential users must be willing to use AAL applications and to integrate them in their daily environments and lives. In this respect, video- and audio-based AAL applications have several advantages, in terms of unobtrusiveness and information richness. Indeed, cameras and microphones are far less obtrusive with respect to the hindrance other wearable sensors may cause to one's activities. In addition, a single camera placed in a room can record most of the activities performed in the room, thus replacing many other non-visual sensors. Currently, video-based applications are effective in recognising and monitoring the activities, the movements, and the overall conditions of the assisted individuals as well as to assess their vital parameters (e.g., heart rate, respiratory rate). Similarly, audio sensors have the potential to become one of the most important modalities for interaction with AAL systems, as they can have a large range of sensing, do not require physical presence at a particular location and are physically intangible. Moreover, relevant information about individuals' activities and health status can derive from processing audio signals (e.g., speech recordings). Nevertheless, as the other side of the coin, cameras and microphones are often perceived as the most intrusive technologies from the viewpoint of the privacy of the monitored individuals. This is due to the richness of the information these technologies convey and the intimate setting where they may be deployed. Solutions able to ensure privacy preservation by context and by design, as well as to ensure high legal and ethical standards are in high demand. After the review of the current state of play and the discussion in GoodBrother, we may claim that the first solutions in this direction are starting to appear in the literature. A multidisciplinary debate among experts and stakeholders is paving the way towards AAL ensuring ergonomics, usability, acceptance and privacy preservation. The DIANA, PAAL, and VisuAAL projects are examples of this fresh approach. This report provides the reader with a review of the most recent advances in audio- and video-based monitoring technologies for AAL. It has been drafted as a collective effort of WG3 to supply an introduction to AAL, its evolution over time and its main functional and technological underpinnings. In this respect, the report contributes to the field with the outline of a new generation of ethical-aware AAL technologies and a proposal for a novel comprehensive taxonomy of AAL systems and applications. Moreover, the report allows non-technical readers to gather an overview of the main components of an AAL system and how these function and interact with the end-users. The report illustrates the state of the art of the most successful AAL applications and functions based on audio and video data, namely (i) lifelogging and self-monitoring, (ii) remote monitoring of vital signs, (iii) emotional state recognition, (iv) food intake monitoring, activity and behaviour recognition, (v) activity and personal assistance, (vi) gesture recognition, (vii) fall detection and prevention, (viii) mobility assessment and frailty recognition, and (ix) cognitive and motor rehabilitation. For these application scenarios, the report illustrates the state of play in terms of scientific advances, available products and research project. The open challenges are also highlighted. The report ends with an overview of the challenges, the hindrances and the opportunities posed by the uptake in real world settings of AAL technologies. In this respect, the report illustrates the current procedural and technological approaches to cope with acceptability, usability and trust in the AAL technology, by surveying strategies and approaches to co-design, to privacy preservation in video and audio data, to transparency and explainability in data processing, and to data transmission and communication. User acceptance and ethical considerations are also debated. Finally, the potentials coming from the silver economy are overviewed.

The use of the Internet and new technologies in order to enhance the quality of life of the blind and the visually impaired has resulted in greater accessibility within this particular environment. This greater accessibility has been analyzed in terms of web-site development, i.e. applying existing standards and establishing new ones with the aim of developing an e-learning system for the blind and the visually impaired. An accessible and usable web is part of the concept of e- accessibility, one of the key elements of e- inclusion, which aims to ensure that eve-ryone without exception is included in the information society. Given this context, e-accessibility refers to the removal of technical barriers and difficulties which the blind or the visually impaired might encoun-ter as they attempt to become part of the information society.

Day by day new changes are appearing in all around the world, The new revolution (digitalization) is having an effect on each single moments of our lives, as an example, health and care system, the way of living and architecture, mobility, transportation, information, communication, and smart homes or day-care centres, dementia centers and elderly housings are not as an exception, they get influenced by technology but always considering the senseablility, senseablility in architectural design and technology wise. Therefore, this paper is going to investigate the new methodologies and techniques in which can be useful for the people who are suffering from absence of memory and they need supports in their lives. The methodology used in this paper is based on Scientific literature review related to usage of technology in architecture. Keyword: Absence of memory, Liveable spaces, AAL, Technology 1$ INTRODUCTION The urban population, which was 1.4 billion in 1970, will increase to 6.3 billion by 2050, with 60% of the world's population expected to be concentrated in urban areas (Revision 2018) and at the same time, the majority of countries have an extra booming in aging societies and Elderly people represent a growing share of the world population. With increasing age, the risk of care necessity and the need for healing of illness is more evident in an aging population. By this expansion in the old age society the risk of dementia is really high. Nearly two-thirds of all dementia cases are caused by Alzheimer disease, followed by vascular dementia and mixed forms of both types. With certain types of illnesses in age-related populations, institutional settings are not at times conducive environments for healing or care. Dementia is characterized by decreasing cognitive, social, and emotional capacities. Therefore, architectural centers for dementia patients should be equipped and ready for different stages of lack of memory. Moreover, since we live in a digitalization era, technology is one of the keys in order to develop better the environmental atmosphere of these centers or even the home of the patients. The environment assisted by technology is a new approach to deal with the aging society and also the people who suffer from the absence of memory. Ambient Assisted living or Ambient Intelligence is the approaches in which they function within technology in different ways. Therefore, it is necessary to investigate the integration of the architecture (Architecture of Future) and new methods AAL, within the architecture and its efficiency for the elderly people and the absence of memory. And also this paper is going to discusses how the efficiency for AAL solutions is achieved.

While reviewing some of the 150 projects that received funding under the AAL-Joint Programme, it becomes obvious that most of them exhibit several major drawbacks. Among these, the most important is that they are too much focused on technology. Many of the proposed solutions still follow the design pattern of the feeding machine presented in the famous movie " Modern Times " of Charlie Chaplin by treating the assisted person as an object. The research described in this paper aims to outline a different approach on the implementation of the AAL systems, by focusing on a neglected resource, which is the assisted persons themselves. We explore two possible solutions aimed to facilitate the participation of the assisted persons in the process of caregiving. First, in an " asynchronous " scheme, we consider the possibility that careseekers may act as caregivers at distinct time moments. Second, in a " synchronous " perspective, the assisted persons actually provide some sort of assistance to other people in need, either by sharing information about their activity patterns, or by participating in technology mediated social interactions similar to those established in therapy groups.

Technological promises of a High-Tech Future of Aging are placed in the context of problematizing current modes of caring and treating seniors. Yet, these technological promises are juxtaposed with moral and value judgments about good care and successful aging, where emergent gerontechnologies function as social ordering devices just as much as they promise better futures. This raises important questions about for whom these futures are good – and for whom they might be bad. This article foregrounds how futures (of aging, and aging technology) are made – and become governing tools themselves: establishing authority, access and who is supposed to benefit on what grounds from technology and future alike.

Abstract. The aim of the EU-funded project SOPRANO is to assist older Europeans to lead a more independent life in their familiar environment by means of a next generation smart home with ambient intelligence. The core of the system in each house will be the SOPRANO ...

Das AAL-Forschungsprojekt SI-Screen hat das Ziel die soziale Interaktion älterer Menschen mit ihrer Familie, Freunden und Bekannten aus der näheren Umgebung zu erleichtern. Vor diesem Hintergrund entsteht der Social Software Integration Layer, eine Middleware welche die Kommunikations- und Interaktionsdienste des Social Webs für mobile Endgeräte zur Verfügung stellt. In diesem Beitrag diskutieren wir unseren Ansatz für die Integration von Social Networking Services und stellen unsere Erkenntnisse hinsichtlich der ubiquitären Bereitstellung dieser Funktionalitäten für Senioren vor.

In this paper, we propose a Quality of Service (QoS) architecture, QUANTA, for an end system protocol suite. We use TCP(UDP)/IP over ATM as a testbed to develop the architecture. We measure the application-level QoS in terms of throughput, delay, round trip time, and loss to identify the base-line performance an application can expect from such an environment. From the no-load condition we measure the behavior of these protocols at various data rates and user submitted data block sizes. We demonstrate the trade-offs involved in obtaining high throughput, low delays, low round trip time, and zero losses at different data rates. We use host-load condition experiments to understand the interaction between the CPU-intensive jobs and the communication-intensive jobs. We use network-load condition experiments to observe interaction between multiple streams of the above two protocol-suites, and its effect on the application QoS. Given these observations we define the missing components in ...

Supporting multiple traffic classes with different QoS (Quality of Service) constraints in third generation mobile systems is not a straightforward problem. This issue becomes critical at the access network interfaces, where transmission resources are usually expensive. One of the most important interfaces is the one that connects each base station with its controller, because there can be many instances of it. We have approached the dimensioning of this interface from the perspective of simulation, concretely for the UMTS (Universal Mobile Telecommunications System) access network. At this respect we have developed a simulation model capable of representing multi-service scenarios inside this particular UTMS interface. This tool can be fed with traffic of different types, representing the different traffic classes defined for UMTS, and is able to simulate traffic differentiation both at ATM (Asynchronous Transfer Mode) and AAL2 (ATM Adaptation Layer 2) level. In the paper we presen...

Die selbstständige Lebensführung bis in das hohe Alter ist eines der Hauptziele der alternden Gesellschaft. Erwägungen älterer Menschen fallen hier mit zen­ tralen Forderungen der Politik zusammen. Eine Schlüsselrolle spielt dabei die Mensch-Technik-Interaktion im demografischen Wandel (MTIDW). Der Beitrag stellt erste Ergebnisse des Projekts „Silver Clips" vor, mit dem an der Hochschule Harz (HS Harz) die Darstellung von Rollenvorbildern zur Heranführung Älterer an die MTIDW optimiert werden soll.

Smart Watches, mobile computers in the format of a wristwatch and worn on the wrist, are generally estimated as the next mega trend of mobile computing. Meanwhile, »wearables« are available in the mass market1, IP67 certified, which feature an autonomous operating 3G mobile radio and include AAL relevant sensors like microphone, 3D-accelerometer and gyroscope, magnetometer, barometer, GPS and heart rate monitor. In addition to the 3G mobile radio, the chosen smart watch can communicate via Bluetooth 4.0 LE or WLAN. In this paper, first we describe the sensoric and commu-nicative potential of smart watches and then present the structure and practical experiences of and with our smart watch based solution for AAL. Subsequently, we compare the requirements in this sector with the current offering of commer-cially available products.

The smart home, ambient intelligence and ambient assisted living have been intensively researched for decades. Although rural areas are an important potential market, because they represent about 80% of the territory of the EU countries and around 125 million inhabitants, there is currently a lack of applicable AAL solutions. This paper discusses the theoretical foundations of AAL in rural areas. This discussion is underlined by the achievements of the empirical field study, Casa Vecchia, which has been carried out over a four-year period in a rural area in Austria. The major goal of Casa Vecchia was to evaluate the feasibility of a specific form of AAL for rural areas: bringing AAL technology to the homes of the elderly, rather than moving seniors to special-equipped care facilities. The Casa Vecchia project thoroughly investigated the possibilities, challenges and drawbacks of AAL related to this specific approach. The findings are promising and somewhat surprising and indicate that further technical, interactional and socio-psychological research is required to make AAL in rural areas reasonable in the future.

The RTP/UDP/IP protocol suite is in the process of being standardized for multiplexing realtime flows. It aims at reducing header overhead, therefore, it is apt for transporting compressed voice in access links or in the core of mobile communication networks. To provide realtime quality of service, networks require traffic parameters which can be met using a spacer.

Supporting multiple traffic classes with different QoS (Quality of Service) constraints in third generation mobile systems is not a straightforwar d problem. This issue becomes critical at the access network interfaces, where transmission resources are usually expensive. One of the most important interfaces is the one that connects each base station with its controller, because there can be many instances

Abstract. Being both EU-IST integrated projects in the field of AAL, PER-SONA and SOPRANO organized a conjoint workshop on the occasion of the AmI-07 conference in order for the researchers of the projects to exchange in-sights of the approaches to the key field challenges, the ...

Im Rahmen des BMBF-geförderten Projekts „fast care“ entwickelt die HarzOptics GmbH – ein An-Institut der Hochschule Harz – ein verteiltes Sensorsystem zur spektroskopischen Luftanalyse. Neben der Beurteilung der Raumluftqualität für AAL-Anwendungen soll das System perspektivisch auch zur Detektion flüchtiger organischer Komponenten (VOC – Volatile Organic Compounds) in Atemgas eingesetzt werden. Da das Vorkommen bestimmter VOC in ausgeatmeter Luft Rückschlüsse auf Erkrankungen wie Lungenkrebs oder Stoffwechselstörungen ermöglicht, rückt – auch angesichts steigender Bandbreiten und sinkender Latenzzeiten – die Integration einer nichtinvasiven permanenten Atemgasanalyse in medizinische Echtzeitversorgungssysteme in den Bereich des Möglichen.

Vorstellung des von 2010 bis 2013 an der Hochschule Harz angesiedelten ZIM-NEMO-Netzwerks TECLA (TEChnische PfLegeAssistenzsysteme) vor der Jury des Hugo-Junkers-Innovationswettbewerbs des Landes Sachsen-Anhalt am 17.10.2012 in der Landesvertretung Sachsen-Anhalts in Berlin.

Ageing of the European population raises issues both socially and economically, creating major challenges for the traditional care and healthcare paradigm. Recent technological developments generate a favorable environment for a paradigm shift in the way care and healthcare is provided, by promoting the inclusion of the elders in the digital society. This paper presents an approach to promote elders inclusion, based on a RWD platform, capable of being used in multiple devices (including SmartTVs), and in wireless sensor networks. Studies involving end users have shown how well-adjusted interfaces ease the process of inclusion of IT in elders' life. This work has been developed within the frame of the European project HELASCoL.

Eine Voraussetzung für die Entfaltung der Unterstützungspotenziale der Architektur für ein sicheres und unabhängiges Leben aller Menschen ist die Planung demografisch nachhaltiger Gebäude. Diese umfassen eine alternsgerechte, weitgehend barrierefreie Architektur sowie den Einsatz technischer Unterstützungssysteme. In der Praxis bestehen derzeit jedoch große Hindernisse zur Verwirklichung generationengerechter Gebäude. Die Aus- und Weiterbildung der Architekten sowie der bislang häufig unzureichende interdisziplinäre Austausch im Planungsprozess zwischen Vertretern der Architektur, Fachplanern für Gebäudetechnik, Wohnungswirtschaft und Handwerk sind wesentliche Ansatzpunkte für die Überwindung dieser Schwierigkeiten. Die Publikation „MATI: Mensch-Architektur-Technik-Interaktion“ gibt allen Akteuren, die an der Planung demografisch nachhaltiger und mit alltagsunterstützender Technik (AAL – Ambient Assisted Living) ausgestatteter Gebäude beteiligt sind, einen Überblick über den derzeitigen Stand der Forschung. Dabei werden Aus- und Weiterbildungen von Architekten, Kooperations- und Planungsstrategien, Ethik und Akzeptanz, Marktgestaltung, Technische Lösungen sowie nationale Praxisbeispiele betrachtet.

The AAL project SI-Screen focuses on providing an innovative user interface for elderly people enhancing their access to awareness streams of Social Networking Services by using tablet computers. As part of our attempt to investigate the acceptance of the newly developed user interface, we assessed the display size and touch input accuracy of multi-touch tablet computers in a multi-directional tapping task as proposed by the ISO 9241-9 standard. In this paper we present our methodology for evaluating touchscreen interfaces ...

Zusammenfassung. Digitale Soziale Netzwerke haben das Potential die soziale Interaktion älterer Menschen mit Familie und Freunden zu unterstützen. Aufgrund altersbedingter Einschränkungen und technischer Barrieren erweisen sich die verfügbaren Benutzerschnittstellen aber häufig als zu komplex und folglich für die Mehrzahl der älteren Menschen ungeeignet. Ziel dieses Beitrages ist die Vorstellung einer ganzheitlichen Lösung zur Schaffung eines einfachen Zugangs zu Sozialen Netzwerken für ältere Menschen. Die ...

The AAL project SI-Screen focuses on providing an innovative user interface for elderly people en- hancing their access to awareness streams of Social Networking Services by using tablet computers. As part of our attempt to investigate the acceptance of the newly developed user interface, we assessed the display size and touch input accuracy of multi-touch tablet computers in a multi-directional tapping task as proposed by the ISO 9241-9 standard. In this paper we present our methodology for evaluating touchscreen interfaces with elderly people and discuss our initial findings obtained in Germany and Spain.

Social Networking Services could strengthen social ties of elderly people with family and friends. However, existing interfaces for displaying activity streams of people are inconsistent and complex and therefore not appropriate for most of the Elderly. The AAL project SI-Screen / ELISA focuses on providing new interfaces for accessing awareness streams of existing Social Community Networks and thereby reducing the complexity by hiding the technology behind. In this paper we propose the separation of device usage and technical configuration. Furthermore, we emphasize the development of new devices which are dedicated to their main purpose.

Das Ziel des AAL-Forschungsprojektes Social Interaction Screen war, die soziale Interaktion älterer Menschen mit ihrer Familie und Freunden zu unterstützen, sowie die Teilnahme an sozialen Aktivitäten in der näheren Umgebung zu fördern. Das Anliegen dieses Beitrags ist es zunächst die Vorgehensweise bei der Realisierung und Evaluation des elderly interaction & service assistant Tablet-Computers vorzustellen. Anschließend soll nach derzeitigem Erkenntnisstand und anhand von Ergebnissen aus dem abschließenden Feldtest geprüft werden, wie humorvolle Konzepte und spielerische Elemente den Umgang mit einer neuartigen Benutzerschnittstelle erleichtern und zur Förderung sozialer Aktivität beitragen können.