Recent Advances in Electrical and Computer Engineering An Adaptive System for the Smart Home SONIA Mª. VALLADARES, MANUEL J. FERNÁNDEZ-IGLESIAS, CARLOS RIVAS, MIGUEL GÓMEZ, LUIS E. ANIDO Department of Telematics Engineering University of Vigo As Lagoas, Marcosende 36310 Vigo Spain {soniavr, manolo, carlosrivas, miguelgomez, lanido}@det.uvigo.es Abstract: - This paper introduces a novel adaptive and self-configurable platform for the digital home that provides on-demand access to a broad portfolio of interactive services. We propose a low-cost open system that integrates different human-machine interfaces like motion-activated remotes or mobile devices to enhance its accessibility for senior users or disabled persons. The solution is vendor-independent and automatically adapts both the services offered and the interfacing mechanisms to users’ individual profiles. Key-Words: - Control Devices, Socio-sanitary Services, interactive TV, Digital Home, Interactive, Adapted Interfaces, Adaptive system 1 Introduction which in many cases are more convenient for senior The penetration of Information and Communication users or disabled persons. Technologies (ICT) both at work and at home made them to pervade our daily lives. However, some user groups (e.g., senior citizens, disabled people) still 2 State of the Art don’t enjoy the full potential of these technologies. We can find in the market a broad range of solutions This paper discusses an accessible platform to for the digital home. Insofar the business model is provide multimedia and socio-sanitary services to concerned there are many platforms (cf. Fig. 1) these collectives through the TV set at home. offering services at home targeted to dependent There are some initiatives to provide interactivity users. For example, Artemis is a training and to the classical TV set, both proprietary (e.g., cognitive stimulation tool developed by Prometeo MediaHighway [1] or OpenTV [2]) and open (e.g., [8] in collaboration with the Spanish Alzheimer MHP [3]), by supporting the development of National Reference Centre (CRE Alzheimer [9]), interactive applications for set-top-boxes [4]. and Miavizor [10] is a system created by the Nevertheless, these technologies didn’t achieve the Galician User and Consumer’s Psychological Unit expected penetration, mainly for economical (PsiCom) [11] at University of Santiago de reasons, as most solutions available are either Compostela able to learn about users’ daily chores proprietary or lack the required versatility. to autonomously define users’ profiles and routines. This project addresses this situation by Other proposals in this field are Companionable developing an open, self-adaptable and accessible [12], or Telegerontología [13]. We also identified a taxonomy collecting the platform on top of a home theatre personal computer main services offered by the evaluated systems (cf. (HTPC[5]) connected to the TV set. This device has Fig. 2). The topmost classification defines services the basic features of a typical personal computer at a as Social, where users at home interact with fraction of its cost, together with some personnel at care centres, and Medical, targeted to characteristics that make it suitable for home use the remote monitoring of vital signs and the (e.g., low noise, reduced form factor, extended generation of alarms in case of risk situations connectivity, enhanced multimedia processing, involving target users. capabilities etc.) However, its main advantage in the From a technological perspective, we evaluated framework of this research is its extended the solutions that might efficiently support the connection capabilities with external peripheral system developed in the framework of this research. devices like standard remotes, motion-activated This analysis included processing devices, software interfaces (e.g., Nintendo’s WiiMote[6] or platforms, and control devices. Microsoft’s Kinetc[7]), smartphones or tablet PCs, ISBN: 978-1-61804-156-2 118 Recent Advances in Electrical and Computer Engineering Wii Remote and Wii Speak [18], Microsoft’s Kinect, smartphones and tablet computers. In a nutshell, most solutions available are proprietary closed platforms, and none of them covers all the requirements of all types of users, lacking a universal accessible design. Besides, they are mostly focused to provide entertainment, and in many cases they require some technological skills to access features beyond the ones available out-of- the-box. Fig. 1. Current business model evaluated. 3 An Adaptive Architecture The need of customisable, adaptable user interfaces requires the implementation of some mechanism (cf. Fig. 3) to seamlessly integrate new interfaces to provide both local and remote access. Users should be able to easily select and configure the best possible interfacing device according to their profiles without the intervention of skilled personnel. Control device and service self-configuration is supported by a graphical user interface displaying all available options. Users just select the most convenient from the list and the system automatically configures all the required services and software interfaces for the selected device. Besides, authorised users may remotely update the list of available devices. Device information is self- contained, and a version history is also kept for each of them. The device repository is accessible using the HTTP protocol. In other words, the platform at users’ premises accesses a Web address to fetch the list of available control devices. When a specific device or version thereof is selected, a self- contained package including all data needed for the integral adaptation of the platform to that interface is downloaded, and the content of that package (i.e., data items that will be updated across the platform) Fig. 2. Taxonomy of ICT Solutions for Elderly People. is extracted and installed. The services provided by the platform have been (1) Processing Devices. The most relevant implemented according to the Service Oriented devices for the digital home are the TV set with an Architecture (SOA [19]) paradigm. Functionalities embedded Internet browser, interactive set-top- are implemented by a collection of Web services boxes, multimedia hard drives, game consoles, that interact using standardised protocols like SOAP Google TV [14] and home theatre personal [20], WSDL [21] and UDDI [22]). computers (HTPC). With respect to the underlying hardware (2) Software. We focused our attention on media architecture, the selected option to construct our centres. Moovida [15], MythTV [16] and XBMC adaptable and self-configurable Internet TV Media Centre [17] were considered for this research. platform was an Ubuntu Linux HTPC with an (3) Control Devices. The most relevant for this XBMC media centre. initiative are the classical TV remote, Nintendo’s ISBN: 978-1-61804-156-2 119 Recent Advances in Electrical and Computer Engineering applications for the digital home based on Web standards like HTML5 [24] or interactive SVG. To sum up, the final product is a service platform where services are provided by the interaction of interoperable heterogeneous devices (e.g., control devices for gaming, HTPCs, multimedia hard disks, TV sets, etc.) that support the creation, integration and delivery of interactive multi-platform online services specifically designed to be used by dependent persons at their homes. We further discuss below the devices and services integrated. 4.2 The Integration of Control Devices As stated above, one of the main contributions of Fig. 3. Adaptive system’s architecture. this work is the integration of several off-the-shelf interactive control devices (cf. Fig. 4) for the interactive TV. Users may select a 2x2 interface layout, which 4 An Adaptive Platform to consists on an array of four alternate options provide Socio-medical Services at the arranged in two columns and two rows, or a scrolling interface, where options are displayed as a Smart Home scroll bar with an active on-focus option. According The aim of this platform is to provide a portfolio of to the array model, this is equivalent to a 1xn online services at home targeted primarily to a interface. collective of users that would benefit the most from this approach, namely senior citizens and disabled persons. Thus, most services are related to social assistance and health care. From a methodological point of view, design and implementation was performed according to the Scrum model [23], which provides a collection of tools for the iterative and incremental management and implementation of software applications. One of the main characteristics of Scrum is the generation of partial deliveries of the target system. This way, each of these operational partial systems is performed in a limited period of time providing an incremental, working version of the final Fig. 4. Excerpt of some control devices analyzed and integrated in this product. These deliveries can be assessed research. independently, so the complete assessment of the With respect to the interactive control devices, final product is also performed in an incremental users may trigger the platform self-configuration for way. any of the devices below: As pointed out above, we designed a collection 1) TV remote control: Buttons in this traditional of self-configurable and adaptable socio-medical TV control device were configured to access the services including cognitive stimulation games, different options and services available. medical agenda, notifications related to