POLITECNICO DI MILANO Department of Electronics, Information and Bioengineering Academic ...

73 Pages·2012·2.39 MB·English

POLITECNICO DI MILANO
Department of Electronics, Information and Bioengineering

Master of Science in Computer Engineering

BRIDGE PROJECT DESIGN AND IMPLEMENTATION OF A
RULE SYSTEM COMPATIBLE WITH CEP METHOD
Supervisor: Prof. Sara Comai
Co-advisors: Simone Mangano, Fabio Veronese
Master Graduation Thesis by Nasim Salehimobarakeh
Student ID Number 780022
Academic year 2016-2017
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Acknowledgment

I would like to extend my sincerest thanks to Prof. Sara Comai for her immeasurable
guidances, continuous patience, intuition and
discipline she has provided gently throughout this research.

I would like to give my special gratitude to Simone Mangano and Fabio Veronese for
their precious suggestions and help in
the practical part of my thesis.

My special thanks also to all my dearest friends, who were inspirational and
supportive during my experience in Politecnico.
A deepest appreciation goes to my father, for his constant encouragement, my mother
for her well esteemed patience and both for their loving hearts, without them I
wouldn’t be who I am today.

I would like to also thank Politecnico di Milano for this fabulous experience. I am
deeply blessed to be a part of Polimi’s family.
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1 Introduction 6
1.1 Context 6
1.2 Problem statement 10
1.2.1 A Description of Devices, Sensors and Actuators 11
1.2.2 Sensors and device description 13
1.2.3 Possible Real Scenarios 16
1.3 Proposed solution 18
1.4 Structure of the thesis 19
2 Background and related work 21
2.1 Relevant scientific results 22
2.2 Relevant technologies 24
2.3 Other Related Works addressing the same problem 26
3 Requirements Analysis 27
3.1 General Requirements 27
3.2 Comparison among Several Approaches 29
4 Design of the Solution 42
4.1 Priority Features List for the User Interface 42
4.2 Most Required Features List 43
4.2.1 General Required List for Rules 43
4.2.2 Required Specific Functionalities for “Events” 46
4.2.3 Required Specific Functionalities for “Conditions” 46
4.2.4 Required Specific Functionalities for “Actions” 48
4.2.5 Some examples 49
4.3 Suggested Features on the User Interface 50
4.3.1 General Structure of the Pages 51
5 Implementation 53
5.1 System implemented for Validating the Idea 53
5.1.1 First View 54
5.1.2 Panel Side Menu 54
5.1.3 Functionalities for Rules 55
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5.1.4 Functionalities for Events 59
5.1.5 Functionalities for Conditions 62
5.1.6 Functionalities for Actions 63
5.1.7 A Technical Overview about Bridge Ruler 65
6 Conclusions 70
6.1 Short summary of work done 70
6.2 Critical discussion of the results 70
6.3 Possible future work 72
7 Bibliography 73
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Some for the Glories of This World; and some
Sigh for the Prophet's Paradise to come;
Ah, take the Cash, and let the Credit go,
Nor heed the rumble of a distant Drum!

Omar Khayyám

(translation by Edward FitzGerald)
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1 Introduction

1.1 Context

According to statistics the mean age of the planet population is increasing1. While the
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health and hygienic services get more accessible and thanks to the advancements in
medical knowledge a slight but steady increase in mean age is being observed. As a
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result of statistical processing from the U.S. Census Bureau international database, the
population of people aged over 65 predicted to rise to around 1,400 million by 2050.

As it could be seen in Figure 1.1 predictions indicate this rising to carry on
continuously.
The graph predicts how the number of people aged 65 and over (vertical axis) will
change with time (horizontal axis) in each continent. This observation of such a growth
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causes the necessity of accessing to reliable and smooth facilities for the elder
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population on the planet.
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Figure 1.1
Graph predicts how the number of people aged 65 and over (shown on the vertical axis) will change with
time (shown on the horizontal axis) in each continent.

Elders, often with cognitive and physical impairment, need assistance in their activities
of daily living (ADLs), which is usually provided by human caregivers (HCGs). Some of
these phenomenon preeminent issues include the long-term viability of current social
support systems and the increasing difficulty in delivering care and assistance within
the family. The slope of the line related to the groups over 65 and 80 shows even
higher rates among this group as it can be seen in Figure 1.2.
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Figure 1.2
The 150 percent expansion of the population aged 65 and over in the next 35 years, in contrast to the
youth population (under age 20) remaining flat in 2015 and 2050

As the elderly are supposed to receive satisfactory services toward their health and
well-being in their living environment, multiple settlements have been proposed to
help them coping with their special needs.

Nowadays, approaches like Ambient Assisted Living (AAL) and Independent Living
(IL) are demonstrated as an alternative to the issue that states the necessity for
improvement of human lives2. General facilities for daily needs are advancing due to
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new technologies. This well being system should be also able to target particular
groups of people like the ones who suffer from any kind of impairments. Those kinds
of disabilities may contain cognitive or physical difficulties that prevent them
experiencing an autonomous and independent life. The fragility of their life
circumstances cause them to feel dependent and it can induce a feeling of being weak.
Whilst, their normal activities, health aspects and any other side of the life that
necessitates autonomy could be practically impossible to accomplish in absence of
other human being.
Since this situation requires a wide and still accurate coverage, these cases ultimately
oblige presence of a second person as a full time caregiver or collaboration of a whole
family or close relatives. But, not all the impaired people are being so lucky or rich
enough to find someone with this kind of characteristics around themselves.
Both of the situations drive the same kind of advantageous; in the latter case, in shape
of the need for impaired people who need to be assisted. In any case, this kind of
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problems could found a provocative origin relating to the same ground of
requirements.
Addressing these problems, multiple choices have been developed to let elderly or
disabled people being facilitated by an automated system. These tools are supposed to
be easily learnt and applicable for this target group in a proactive manner. Therefore,
these both two elements are forming to a critical requirement that should be resolved
by taking appropriate solutions.

The work presented in this document is part of the project “Bridge1” (Behaviour dRift
compensation for autonomous InDependent livinG2). This project as its name implies,
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defines the specification and implements an infrastructure of an ambient assisted
living project. The project has been designed as a solution to the situation in which
elderly or disabled people must be aimed in order to experience a more smoothing and
easier life. The Bridge project’s fundamental infrastructure is composed of two main
subsystems. One is a local and the other is a remote subsystem. While the former has
home automation devices, sensors, and a local server, the remote subsystem is based
on more powerful hardware for the long term storage. This stores the data coming
from the local subsystem for future analysis over a long period of time. Moreover, it
enables remote house control and can provide information to the caregivers about the
house and its inhabitants statuses. The project which is done and described in this
document enriches the remote house control subsystem by enabling it to define
customized rules according to the happenings that might occur. This rules could be
found and created by the caregivers or the elderly or disabled person herself. The
capability of new specific rules per each user allows us to have a flexible system that
can be used by the final user accordingly. The project is called “Bridge Ruler” and it is
responsible for providing a lightweight frontend with respect to the requirements of
general specifications of the project Bridge.
Figure 1.3 illustrates the local subsystem architecture, which interconnects the smart
home’s autonomous components, making them interoperable and providing the tools
to control and monitor the whole house. The house services layer (bottom of the Figure
1.3) comprises a set of heterogeneous services used to compose the smart home and its
extensions. The Bridge Ruler application mainly plays the role of an interface in which
a presentation layer is developed. This subsystem serves the Bridge project as a part of
the “House Service Layer” that lays down in the lowest section of the Figure 1.3. This
interface is implemented in order to connect the Smart Home local architecture with
the backend layer which is a binder rule subsystem. According to this architecture,
Bridge Ruler supplies a front end in which by composing rules an interconnection is
made between the data turning out from the set of house sensors and actuators and
other services or extensions in the “Services Abstraction Layer".
1 Bridge: Mutual Reassurance for Autonomous and Independent Living
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Figure 1.3

1.2 Problem statement

In the Bridge project we are dealing with handling risky or critical situations that are
plausible to occur when an elder person is living in a house on her own. Projects that
are known generally as Smart Home projects generally have been introduced to solve
the case in which a person with disability needs to be supported with her daily
activities in her house3. The Smart Home project has been proposed and allotted as a
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solution for elderly or people with any types of disability. It provides house control
interfaces in which bahavioural habits of the person in a house are monitored by
means of sensors or actuators installed inside the house. The interface is supplied with
the data that gets accumulated by sensors and actuators. The ambient assistant system
then will smooth the procedure of automation control of house appliances and this