Information and assistance bubbles to help elderly people in public environments. Presentation held in Buenos Aires during the EMBC 2010 about AmI and the concept of bubbles by Vicente Traver.

1. EMBC 10
Information and assistance bubbles to
help elderly people in public environments
Vicente Traver , Sergio Guillén, Juan Pablo Lázaro, Sandra Huertas
E-mail: vtraver@itaca.upv.es
Buenos Aires, 1st September 2010

2. Information and assistance bubbles to help elderly people in public environments
I. INTRODUCTION
AmI
Ambient Assisted Living
“AAL is the application of the AmI paradigm to improve and extend the duration of independence
living of elderly people in their preferred environment”
AAL services
Daily activities Safety and security
Mobility Social integration

3. Information and assistance bubbles to help elderly people in public environments
II. BACKGROUND AND MATERIALS
PERSONA project
 Objectives
oThe specification of a reference architecture
oThe implementation of an AAL platform
oThe implementation of a wide range of AAL Services to be tested in real environment
 Platform based on a distributed middleware
 AAL services
 AAL spaces

4. Information and assistance bubbles to help elderly people in public environments
II. BACKGROUND AND MATERIALS
 The aim purpose is to create intelligent areas
(AAL spaces) to support elderly people outside home
 Users will benefit of this service when they are
walking at the street near public buildings, and inside
public buildings

5. Information and assistance bubbles to help elderly people in public environments
III. RESULTS. AAL APPLICATION
 “Bubble” concept
“Bluetooth coverage area of a public building”
 Is applied to public and private buildings
 Inside the bubble the user is able to enjoy information
and assistance contextual
related to the bubble
 Services are consumed
through a mobile device
 Transparent for the user

6. Information and assistance bubbles to help elderly people in public environments
II. BACKGROUND AND MATERIALS
Bubbles provide:
Contextual information
o to inform users about news, events…
o to improve their social integration
Contextual assistance
o to help elderly users inside the building

7. Information and assistance bubbles to help elderly people in public environments
III. RESULTS. AAL APPLICATION
A. Information Bubbles
 The service pushes information to the users’ mobiles
 Filtered information according to the user personal profile
 Users must subscribe to the service
 Information is pushed using Bluetooth: GOEP (General
Object Exchange Profile) and OBEX (OBject EXchange)
 Objective: to improve their social integration and give real
time information outside home

8. Information and assistance bubbles to help elderly people in public environments
III. RESULTS. AAL APPLICATION
A. Information Bubbles
 Bubbles service connected with Agenda&Reminders instance
of PERSONA

9. Information and assistance bubbles to help elderly people in public environments
III. RESULTS. AAL APPLICATION
B. Assistance Bubbles
 The service offers the possibility to download a software
application
 It is downloaded, installed and executed in real time
 Assistance is offered using GOEP, SPP (Serial Port Profile),
OBEX and RFCOMM (Radio Frequency Communication)
 Variety of downloadable applications
 Objective: help elderly users inside the building

10. Information and assistance bubbles to help elderly people in public environments
III. RESULTS. AAL APPLICATION
C. Evaluation
 Information and Assistance AAL service tested:
 by a group of 15 users
 In the CIAMI Living Lab Valencia
 Questionnaires → quantitative results
 Evaluated parameters:
o Usefulness
o Learnability
o Easy to use
o Effectiveness
o Emotional response

11. Information and assistance bubbles to help elderly people in public environments
III. RESULTS. AAL APPLICATION
Radial diagram illustrating the evaluation of the Information and
Assistance Bubbles AAL Service by:
Young users Elderly users
Average values

12. Information and assistance bubbles to help elderly people in public environments
IV. CONCLUSIONS AND NEXT STEPS
Conclusions
 The combination of technologies to achieve the goal of
seamlessly communicating with a certain user in a public
environment through a mobile device has been achieved
 Users forget technology behind to perform the actions

13. Information and assistance bubbles to help elderly people in public environments
IV. CONCLUSIONS AND NEXT STEPS
Next steps
 Evaluate the service in a real urban environment
 Involve several public building to act as a bubble
 Extend the application to elderly people that may have
more limitations

14. EMBC 10
Information and assistance bubbles to
help elderly people in public environments
Thanks for your attention
Vicente Traver , Sergio Guillén, Juan Pablo Lázaro, Sandra Huertas
E-mail: vtraver@itaca.upv.es
Buenos Aires, 1st September 2010