In many telemonitoring ecosystems smartphones are used. They capture vital signs from specified medical devices and send them to specified medical service centers. Smartphone applications for different mobile operating systems are not interoperable. Thus, telemonitoring ecosystems using different smartphone models are mostly not interoperable as well. In the Ambient Assisted Living project EmotionAAL, we developed the Plug&Care Connector, a pluggable telemonitoring technology. It allows to setup telemonitoring ecosystems, that are interoperable as well as flexible concerning the used kind of medical devices and service backends. The Plug&Care Connector is designed in a way that it can connect any kind of device to any kind of service backend. Furthermore, it runs on different mobile and desktop operating systems. Besides the ability to transmit data of medical devices to remote services it also allows to share measured data with other applications on the same smartphone.

1. Plug&Care Connector: A Pluggable Telemonitoring
Technology
Steven Mohr
German Aerospace Center (DLR)
SoSMD 2011
Lawrence, 12.11.2011
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SoSMD 2011> Steven Mohr > 12.11.2011

2. Outline
1. Background: DLR and EmotionAAL
2. What is the Plug&Care Connector?
3. Used technologies
4. High-level Architecture: Driver, Transmitter, Apps
5. Code Examples
6. Current limitations
7. Solutions
8. Future Work
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SoSMD 2011> Steven Mohr > 12.11.2011

3. DLR
German Aerospace Center
Research Institution
7000 Employees
Space Agency
31 institutes
Project Management Agency
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SoSMD 2011> Steven Mohr > 12.11.2011

4. EU Project „EmotionAAL“
„Support of people with chronical diseases in rural regions“
Ambient Assistent Living (AAL) program
10 Partners from Germany, Austria and Finland
DLR: Simulation and Software Technology, Institute for Aerospace
Medicine
Slide 4
Plug&Care Connector > Doreen Seider > 07.04.2011

5. What‘s the Plug&Care Connector?
Framework to build flexible telemonitoring setups
Based on Java and OSGi
Platform-indepedent and modular
Middleware for Mobile Platforms
Android, Windows Phone Classic 6, Symbian S60
“lab version“ for Windows, Linux and OS X
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SoSMD 2011> Steven Mohr > 12.11.2011

6. OSGi
OSGi specification describes an environment for modular and service-
based software systems
OSGi needs an execution environment called OSGi Framework
This framework manages all services and interactions between
them
We use ProSyst‘s mBS mobile on smartphones
Provides the standard OSGi functionality + some non-standard
extensions
W3C widget support
Available for Android, Windows Phone
Classic and Symbian S60
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SoSMD 2011> Steven Mohr > 12.11.2011

7. What‘s our motivation?
Current telemonitoring software concentrates mostly on:
one platform or – even worse – one type of smartphone
one or just a few device manufacturers
one service backend
We want to build a framework that allows
To easily build flexible telemonitoring setups
Device manufacturers, service providers and app developers to
focus on their main competence
To share measured data with the service centers and with
applications on the smartphone
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SoSMD 2011> Steven Mohr > 12.11.2011

8. A high-level architecture view
Application
P&C
Driver Transmitter
Connector
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SoSMD 2011> Steven Mohr > 12.11.2011

9. Drivers
Plugin that communicates with a medical device
Gathers vital signs
What does the developer have to do?
Write a method that checks whether a device is compatible with
that driver
Write a method that does the communication
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SoSMD 2011> Steven Mohr > 12.11.2011

10. Drivers
Which devices are supported?
IEM Stabil-O-Graph, Libr-O-Graph, Mobil-O-Graph
HMM SmartLab
Boso Medicus Prestige
Next to support:
ECG devices
Slide 10
SoSMD 2011> Steven Mohr > 12.11.2011

11. A high-level architecture view
Application
P&C
Driver Transmitter
Connector
Slide 11
SoSMD 2011> Steven Mohr > 12.11.2011

12. Plug&Care Connector
Manages data flow between drivers and transmitters
Saves measured data encrypted in a local database
Manages device-driver-pairs, connection initiation and starts listening
server sockets
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SoSMD 2011> Steven Mohr > 12.11.2011

13. A high-level architecture view
Application
P&C
Driver Transmitter
Connector
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SoSMD 2011> Steven Mohr > 12.11.2011

14. Transmitters
Transmits new measurements to remote service backends
Tells the P&CC in which kind of data it is interested
What does the developer have to do?
Write a method that provides the needed configuration
Like username, password, etc.
P&CC generates configuration forms for that
Write a method that does the communication
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SoSMD 2011> Steven Mohr > 12.11.2011

15. Transmitters
What kind of transmitters have been implemented?
Twitter
Instant messaging (XMPP)
E-Mail
Vitaphone ISP
Microsoft HealthVault (in recent version)
Generic REST transmitter
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SoSMD 2011> Steven Mohr > 12.11.2011

16. Applications
Process and visualize the gathered data
Query data from Plug&Care Connector’s database
Built using web standards such as HTML, CSS, and JavaScript (W3C
widgets)
OS-independent development
Slide 16
SoSMD 2011> Steven Mohr > 12.11.2011

17. Plug & Care Connector
Screenshots: Settings Widget
Slide 17
Plug&Care Connector > Doreen Seider > 07.04.2011

18. Code
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SoSMD 2011> Steven Mohr > 12.11.2011

19. Standards – ISO 11073, Continua, etc.
P&CC is a framework, not a new standard
Standards reduce the needed work for us but
Some manufacturers implement their own protocol (no interest in
standards, too expensive to commit to a standard, etc.)
For some vital signs no standard exists
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SoSMD 2011> Steven Mohr > 12.11.2011

20. Limitations
OSGi is a Java technology
No support on Windows Phone 7 or iOS
From the 3 supported OS 2 are outdated: S60 and Windows Phone
Classic
UI is completely different from native ones
May harm user acceptance
Really slow reaction
All in all: Tight dependency on OSGi and mBS mobile is a big
disadvantage
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SoSMD 2011> Steven Mohr > 12.11.2011

21. Moving from one platform-independent software to
many native ones
Problem
„Write once, run everywhere“ for drivers and transmitters does not
work
Maybe for Java-based platform (OSGi <-> Android)
Definitely not for Java <-> Windows Phone 7 or iOS
But it is the main feature of the P&CC!
Solution
Domain-specific language (DSL)
Should be realizable for drivers but difficult for transmitters
Slide 21
SoSMD 2011> Steven Mohr > 12.11.2011

22. Moving from one platform-independent to many
native ones
DSL for drivers
Has to be defined not only for communication-related operations
but also for other parts like checksum calculation
DSL for transmitters
Overly complicated
Easier to use third-party libraries for cross-platform development
Appcelerator Titanium Mobile
No difference between apps and transmitters anymore
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SoSMD 2011> Steven Mohr > 12.11.2011

23. Moving from one platform-independent to many
native ones
Advantages
Better responsiveness
Seamless integration with host OS
Use the best available way to reach functionality instead of
smallest subset of all supported OS
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SoSMD 2011> Steven Mohr > 12.11.2011

24. Future work and outlook
Pilot phase in Germany and Finland in January 2012 (30 users for
around 3 months in each country)
Finishing Android version
Evaluation of Windows Phone 7 and iOS
Definition and Implementation of the DSL
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SoSMD 2011> Steven Mohr > 12.11.2011

25. Thank you!
Contact
Steven Mohr
mail: steven.mohr@dlr.de
www: dlr.de/sc
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SoSMD 2011> Steven Mohr > 12.11.2011