Fraunhofer Center for Assistive Information and Communication Solutions – AICOS
Personal Area Dots: Letting Everything Sense
Fraunhofer Portugal developed a novel architecture of embedded electronics for wireless devices that can be used to develop Wearable and IoT solutions. This architecture has been used in several internal and external projects that range from home appliance control, indoor farming to fall detection and activity monitoring. This architecture is designed for a seamless integration with mobile platforms, as a foundational design for new IoT devices.
The project combines internal expertise on five main competences areas:
> Hardware – Hardware development for wireless scenarios in low power and reduced dimensions, combined with sensors integration;
> Firmware – Libraries for the complete device life cycle and set of features required on low power design;
> Mobileware – Libraries for data collection from the wearable sensors and energy efficient signal processing for the mobile phone;
> Testing Infrastructure – A platform and guidelines to for firmware, wearable and IoT test scenarios.
> Data warehouse – Structured repository to add individual sensor acquisitions repository to the current mobile phone signal databases.
This framework, including hardware, firmware and software components, was designed to be seamlessly integrated into Android’s operating system, offering developers enhanced and new features to sense and interact with the surroundings.
Also, the framework envisages the development of new solutions for wearable devices, such as activity monitoring or fall detection, and the emerging Internet of Things. Solutions are then tailored to fit specific requirements from clients or to address relevant use cases.
One example is a solution that aims to support the autonomous living of the elderly. The current challenge is to progress from a previous version developed internally and search for novel use cases where the technology could be proposed to the autonomous living market, in specific niche areas (pathology/demography oriented development).
The goal is to improve the current design and produce a use case oriented solution. The initial sensor is a functional system designed for a specific client and was developed and delivered during 2013. The new solution will be composed by a worn device, which will be able to connect to a mobile phone with fall detection and activity monitoring capabilities.
On the other hand, this platform is also being used to monitor water parameters in the context of hydroponic farming, which is a mobile solution for farmers that aims to improve the level of management, control and production in this environment.
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