Smart Condo aims to help physically disabled gain independence

Feedback sensors intricate part of high-tech condo design

Professors and students at the University of Alberta have created a prototype of an apartment that, if successful, might lead to a leap in unobtrusive home surveillance technology for the elderly and disabled.

The prototype, now in place at the Telus Centre, is the product of a massive cross-discipline project that began as part of a class on the development of disability-friendly products in the Department of Occupational Therapy, and later spread to Computing Science, Pharmacy, and Industrial Design.

“The activity monitoring system will aid people who have inabilities and need to be monitored and assisted with either reminders or help from a health professional,” said Lili Liu, chair of the Department of Occupational Therapy.

“The long-term vision is to build a space that will enable the disabled or elderly to live independently longer.”
Traditionally, the elderly or disabled often require either in-house assistance or time-consuming and invasive
video surveillance. The new monitoring system hopes to do away with both, increasing the independence and privacy of those living with disability.

Motion sensors run throughout the apartment, and pressure sensors can be found in furniture as well as the grab bars that will be put in place once a completed copy of the apartment is built at the Edmonton Clinic. The team of professors also hopes to design a raised floor which will contain sensors capable of detecting stumbles and falls. Once completed, the monitoring system will function without the apartment’s occupants knowing it’s there.

The motion and pressure sensors used were originally designed to let biologists remotely check animal traps without the expense of video surveillance or the time needed to physically go to trap sites. By using similar sensors instead of video, those in the apartment are only visible to health care professionals via a virtual and interactive reconstruction of the apartment similar to what’s found in Second Life, a massively multiplayer online game that uses avatars to represent people.

“Video takes as much time to interpret as it does to film, and that process can’t be automated. By measuring these low-bandwidth events such as a person’s movement, we speed up the process and can allow for [computer automation of the surveillance process],” said Ioanis Nikolaidis, a professor in the Department of Computing Science.

“Instead of using cameras and taking feed, we’re using the sensors to monitor for activity patterns,” added Eleni Stroulia, another professor with the Department of Computing Science.

“These activity patterns drive a virtual world which is interactive. Health care professionals can then come and interact with you through this virtual shape.”

The project also provided students with a hands-on learning opportunity and a chance to tackle problems related to occupational therapy or their respective fields while considering the practical issues that come from interacting with other disciplines in the real world.

“Alone in their disciplines, students try to compensate for their gap in knowledge by trying to do everything. In the end, something suffers, and what they’re good at is not showcased properly,” Liu said.

“The point of the class is to give students an opportunity to work together and experience the interdisciplinary challenges present in the real world before they graduate.”

But the most rewarding aspect of the project, Nikolaidis added, is that the real-world application of such design, computing and therapeutic learning can benefit those living with disability.

“We can make these observations without being intrusive or invading privacy, and if we can provide that with a sense of independence, we’ve accomplished our goal,” he said.