Wireless Sensor Networks for the Determination Wellness of Elderly People by Designing of a Multi-Sensor Based System by Experimental Studies

1. International Journal of Trend in Research and Development, Volume 2(5), ISSN 2394-9333
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Wireless Sensor Networks for the Determination Wellness of Elderly
People by Designing of a Multi-Sensor Based System by
Experimental Studies
K.Srinivasa Reddy,
Research Scholar ,Bharath University,Chennai, India,
Associate Professor, Department of Electronics and Communication Engineering,
Nagole Institute Of Technology And Science, Hyderabad, Telangana, India.
Abstract— The proportion of elderly people in any
population is growing rapidly creating the need to increase
geriatric care and this trend isn’t going to change in the near
future. This will put tremendous strain on national resources
and the cost of elder care is only going to escalate. More and
more elderly people are choosing to stay alone,
independently, rather than in a retirement village or old
people’s home. Such people, often frail and infirm, do
however require constant monitoring so that medical help can
be provided immediately in times of dire needs. Considerable
research efforts have been focused towards in-home
monitoring of elderly people, often using wireless personal
area networks. As wireless sensing technology continues to
evolve, it is playing an important role in improving the
quality of life for elderly people and their families. Wireless
sensors based smart home monitoring system provides a safe,
sound and secure living environment for the elderly people.
A wireless sensors based smart home consists of number of
wireless sensors that provide information. The information
from the sensors can be used for monitoring elderly people
by detecting their abnormal patterns in their daily activities
and picking up any unforeseen abnormal condition when
occurs. The project is focused on research and developmental
issues of an intelligent wireless sensors based smart home
and determination of person’s daily activities based on the
usage of different appliances. The daily pattern can then be
compared to determine the early signs of behavioral pattern
change of elderly, which can potentially allow for early
medical intervention. While several sensors are readily
available off the shelf, making them ―intelligent‖ in the
context of a specific application (such as monitoring of the
elderly) is always a challenging task. We have developed a
framework, dealing with the design intricacies and
implementation issues of novel sensors, targeted to achieve a
Digital Home specifically for the elderly. The developed
monitoring system is used to recognize activities of daily
living and life style of elderly person living alone. Even
though the monitoring system uses a limited number of
sensors, it determines the daily behavior of the person. The
system was installed in residential environments with ease.
Moreover, the proposed sensing system presents an
alternative to sensors that are perceived by most people as
invasive such as cameras and microphones, making the
sensors are almost invisible to the user thereby increasing the
acceptance level to use the system in a household
environment.
Keywords: Wsn, Zigbee, Sensor, Hearbeat Sensor.
I. OVERVIEW OF THE SYSTEM
Wireless sensor network for wellness determination
of elderly involves functional assessment of daily activities
and health monitoring of elderly in this A smart sensor
coordinator collects data from the sensing units and forward
to the computer system for data processing. Collected sensor
data are of low level information containing only status of the
sensor as active or inactive and identity of the sensor. To
sense the activity behavior of elderly in real time, the next
level software module will analyze the collected data by
following an intelligent mechanism at various level of data
abstraction based on time and sequence behavior of sensor
usage.
II. EXISTING SYSTEM
Home Monitoring Activities through camera lacks a huge
acceptability among elder persons. Other than camera,
infrared small motion detectors, passing sensors, operation
detectors and IR motion sensors have been incorporated in
the house for monitoring human activity behavior and the
interpretation of human activity is limited only to a few
human activities.
There are many existing systems on personal wellness
monitoring and safety like RFID Communication technology
and wearable health devices integrated with sensors to
provide continuous monitoring of person’s health related
issues and activity monitoring.
RFID (Radio Frequency Identification) is the abbreviation for
individual identification by radio waves. The system is able
to collect positional information when a radio wave
transmitted by an RFID reader strikes an RFID tag with
embedded information, which is then included in the radio
wave reflected to and captured by the reader.
Though these devices are for specific purposes they have
severe concerns related to security, privacy and legal aspects.
Usually people are reluctant to wear a system continuously

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on their body. So it may not be viable option for a healthy
elderly people. This situation may be acceptable for a patient
under rehabilitation.
Wireless sensor networks offer a number of advantages over
traditional RFID implementations, First of all, the ability to
rapidly deploy a multi-hop network (RFID is single hop only)
allows WSNs to be used in a number of ad hoc/temporary.
WSN is ability to locally store data when the tag/node is 'out
of network' and then download that data when the tag or node
comes back into a network provides an audit trail with time
line, environmental conditions and location.
Using wireless sensor network it is possible to monitor elder
person who is alone at home, using Zigbee module.
III. PROPOSED SYSTEM
In the present work, an intelligent home monitoring system
based on ZIGBEE wireless sensors networks has been
designed and developed to monitor the and evaluate the well
being of the elderly living alone in a home environment.
Wellness of elderly can be evaluated for forecasting the
unsafe situations during monitoring of regular activities
At the low level module wireless sensor network integrated
with ZIGBEE modules of mesh structure exists capturing the
sensor data based on the usage of electrical appliances and
stores data in the computer system for further data processing
Collected sensor data are of low level information containing
only status of the sensor as active or inactive and identity of
the sensor
The low level module consists of a number of sensors
interconnected to detect usage of electrical devices, bed
usage and chairs etc. ZIGBEE transceiver which
communicates at 2.4 GHz (ISM) through radio frequency
protocols and provides sensor information that can be used to
monitor the daily activities of an elderly person
Using wireless sensor network it is possible to monitor elder
person who is alone at home, using Zigbee module and GSM
module.
IV. NEED FOR EARLY DETECTION OF
AGEING CHANGES/PROBLEMS OF
ELDERLY PEOPLE
The increase ageing of population in the world is
associated with the increase of suffering with many
disabilities. So there is a need for an in-home pervasive
network which assists and helps the residents by
controlling home appliances, medical data look back and
also communicating in case of an emergency. Too often are
headlines such as these seen in the paper: ―Elderly man lay
dead for days‖, and ―Woman found starved in flat‖.
It is shocking to know that no one was looking after these
people and imagine they must have an uncaring family.
At the same time however, as a society we value our
rights to live independently and keep control of our own
lives. Many dread the thought of being forced to live with
their adult children, or in a rest home or other sheltered
living arrangement yet at the same time they know there is
a high risk of death because of a collapse, a fall, or stroke.
There are many people in our community who because of
age or some infirmity, or perhaps because their memory
and judgment can no longer be totally relied upon, are having
pressure put on them by loving relatives to leave their home
and give up their precious independence. Any abnormal
events which can occur to an old person in a home often
leads to more serious illnesses or even death. But in a
case of reduced mobility or other factors which leads to
this kind of situation should also be considered for
effective monitoring, which will make a significant impact
on the health of the elderly people. Surely, with the
technology of today, there is a better way for these people to
resolve this problem. This technological assistance or
monitoring of a person in the home is achieved using few
but effective wireless sensors, which are centralized in
structure and distributed around the house. The smart
home concept is a promising way to improve the living
standards of elderly by improving the home care for the
elderly. The smart home monitoring can circumvent
institutionalizing the older persons and can help them live
at home in safety and provide independence. The smart
homes target to improve comfort, quality of life, safety,
monitoring, monitoring mobility and physiological
parameters. Modern sensor not only assists and monitors
people with reduced physical functions but helps to resolve
the social isolation they face. They are capable of providing
assistance without limiting or disturbing the resident’s
daily routine, giving him or her greater comfort, pleasure,
and well-being. A number of smart homes have now
been developed around the world by many institutes and
researchers. The smart home is based on smart and
intelligent sensors, which are developed, fabricated and
configured around a wireless network. It is expected that
these smart homes can reduce escalating medical costs.
V. OUR APPROACH AND SOLUTION
Recent advances in sensor technology, communication
systems, and information technologies have created ample
opportunities to develop novel tools enabling remote
monitoring in-case of emergency conditions, and to
care the elderly. In-home monitoring has the added
benefit of evaluating individualized health status and
reporting it to care providers, and caregivers alike; allowing
timelier and individually targeted preventive interventions
[13]. The smart homes equipped with the wireless sensor
networks will benefit both health care providers and
their patients. By monitoring the patient continuously and
reporting any abnormal situation, the system frees human
labour and thus reducing labour costs and increasing
efficiency by notifying doctors or health care provider
quickly. The data collected from various sensors over
the network in a smart home can be stored and
integrated into comprehensive health record. Other issues

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like quality of life for elder people, such as privacy,
independence, dignity and convenience are supported and
enhanced by the ability to provide services in the patient’s
own home. It is a known fact that the use and the way of
implementation of wireless sensor networks drastically
change from one application to other application; the
need for in-depth study on performance parameters is
vital. While several sensors are readily available off the
shelf, making them ―intelligent‖ in the context of a specific
application (such as monitoring of the elderly) is always a
challenging task. For example, an intelligent wireless
sensor system will not only detect the usage pattern of
the daily appliances, it will have capabilities to collate the
data and analyse them. Depending on the data analysis it can
detect any abnormality. To achieve this I have developed
and implemented a SMART component-based system by
integrating various sensors and communicating via
standard radio frequency protocols. The system depends
on a set of selected number of wireless sensors and
controller which relies on inputs from sensors. This system
will consist of a proof-of-concept that what I have
developed is feasible, reliable, practical and scalable.
VI. RESULTLS
Below figure shows Integration of all sensors with
ARM7 this is connected to the Zigbee and GSM modules, for
monitoring the person and controlling.
Figure 1: Integration of all sensors with ARM7
These sensors are connected to the ARM7 board by
using GSM and ZIGBEE modules we can monitor the person
who is alone at home, we can also control some operations
such as if the temperature is high we will be getting message
to our mobiles through GSM module then we can on fan, and
if the light intensity is less then we can switch on light, if the
heart beat rate is more then we will be getting message to the
mobile then we can admit that person into hospital.
Figure 2: code execution using visual basic
Figure 3: Entering the port number for execution of code
Below screenshot shows display of temperature and heart
beat rate of elder person who is alone at home
Figure 4: Temperature And Heart Beat Rate Display
Conclusion
In the present work, an intelligent home monitoring
system based on ZIGBEE wireless sensors networks has been
designed and developed to monitor the and evaluate the well
being of the elderly living alone in a home environment. To
sense the activity behavior of elderly in real time, connect all

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the sensors to particular person then these sensors collect the
data and the next level software module will analyze the
collected data by following an intelligent mechanism at
various level of data abstraction Based on time and sequence
behavior of sensor usage and pass it through the network to a
main location. For knowing wellness of the person up to date,
here we are using Zigbee and GSM modules for passing
information about the elder person to the monitoring person,
if the temperature or heartbeat rate of the elder person is
exceeds particular value then it will send a message to the
monitoring person so that he can act further.
This thesis has undertaken a fundamental study to
develop an in-house sensing system based on wireless sensor
networks to monitor elderly. The wireless elderly monitoring
system demonstrates that smart, simple sensor devices
can be used to recognize activities of daily living and
life style of elderly person living alone. The system is
becoming more complete as more intelligent features are
added to detect the daily activity patterns efficiently. Even
though it uses a limited number of sensors, it can capture
the abnormality in a person’s daily routine by
recognizing the use of appliances necessary for daily
living, thus determining the life style of elderly person living
alone. The system can be installed/ maintained in
residential environments without any complexity.
Moreover, the proposed sensing system presents an
alternative to sensors that are perceived by most people as
invasive such as use of cameras and microphones, making
the sensors are almost invisible to the user thereby increasing
the acceptance level to use the system in a house hold
environment. The system can be easily installed in an
existing home environment with no major modifications
or damage.The developed system continuously monitor the
activity of the elderly person staying alone and generate the
sensor activity pattern to analyze and foresee the changes
in daily activities of the elderly person. In the near future,
the generated activity pattern related to weekdays and
weekends will be used to predict the unusual behavior of the
elderly person based on the classification model of
regular and irregular sensor activity. Results of Real-time
activity behavior recognition of the inhabitant were
encouraging. Classification of abnormal situation based on
multi-level check method was validated with machine
learning methods.
Integration of wellness function in the developed software
system was effectively able to determine the abnormal
situation of the inhabitant.
A. GSM Modem:
A GSM modem is a wireless modem that works with a
GSM wireless network. A wireless modem behaves like a
dial-up modem. The main difference between them is that a
dial-up modem sends and receives data through a fixed
telephone line while a wireless modem sends and receives
data through radio waves.
A GSM modem can be an external device or a PC Card /
PCMCIA Card. Typically, an external GSM modem is
connected to a computer through a serial cable or a USB
cable. A GSM modem in the form of a PC Card / PCMCIA
Card is designed for use with a laptop computer. It should be
inserted into one of the PC Card / PCMCIA Card slots of a
laptop computer. Like a GSM mobile phone, a GSM modem
requires a SIM card from a wireless carrier in order to
operate.
As mentioned in earlier sections of this SMS tutorial,
computers use AT commands to control modems. Both GSM
modems and dial-up modems support a common set of
standard AT commands. You can use a GSM modem just
like a dial-up modem
Figure 5: GSM
In addition to the standard AT commands, GSM modems
support an extended set of AT commands. These extended
AT commands are defined in the GSM standards. With the
extended AT commands, you can do things like:
• Reading, writing and deleting SMS messages.
• Sending SMS messages.
• Monitoring the signal strength.
• Monitoring the charging status and charge level of
the battery.
• Reading, writing and searching phone book entries.
The number of SMS messages that can be processed by a
GSM modem per minute is very low, only about six to ten
SMS messages per minute.
B. Operation And Results
Wireless sensor network for wellness determination
of elderly is working with sensors includes heart beat sensor,
temperature sensor, LDR sensor, MEMS sensor, and Driver
unit which is connected to two external devices such as fan
and light. Sensors sense the respected values and send it to
the ARM7 processor, that will be processed and send it to the
Zigbee module and GSM module, while coding we will set
particular value to the temperature sensor, heart beat sensor,
LDR sensor, MEMS sensor, when it exceeds that particular
value then we will be getting message to our mobile through
GSM module.

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Figure 6: Integration of all sensors with ARM7
CONCLUSION
In this system, the required number of sensors for
monitoring the daily activities of the elderly have been used.
A smart sensor coordinator collects data from the sensing
units and forward to the computer system for data processing.
Collected sensor data are of low level information containing
only status of the sensor as active or inactive and identity of
the sensor. To sense the activity behavior of elderly in real
time, the next level software module will analyze the
collected data by following an intelligent mechanism at
various level of data abstraction based on time and sequence
behavior of sensor usage.
Acknowledgment
The author would like to thank Mr.K.Srinivasa
Reddy, Associate Professor, for providing necessary facilities
to carry out this work. A special gratitude to my parents for
their constant encouragement without which this assignment
would not be possible.
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Authors:
Mr.K. Srinivasa Reddy is research scholar from
bharath university,chennai and also Associate Professor of
the Electronics and Communication Engineering, Nagole
Institute of Technology and Science, Hyderabad .He received
his B.Tech degree in Electronics and Communication
Engineering from JNT University, Hyderabad, and M.Tech
degree in Embedded Systems from JNT University,
Hyderabad.. He is a member of The International Association
of Engineers (IAENG). He had twelve publications in
National and International Journals. He has written three text
books in the field of wireless communications.