Page 251 - Handbook of Electronic Assistive Technology

240 HANDBOOK OF ELECTRONIC ASSISTIVE TECHNOLOGY

The need to actively link into the local environment for local intelligent response of
the property was tacitly accepted in the recognition that consideration should be given to
comparisons and compatibility with proposed protocols and standards, which included
the leading infrastructure-cabled smart home systems.
The monitoring aspects of a smart house system are inherently available as part of its
infrastructure and may therefore be considered pervasive. The inclusion within a property
of an intelligent infrastructure, which could be used within a monitoring paradigm, offers
several advantages over a standalone monitoring system:
1� The type of alert:
a� A smart system has the potential to parameterise sensors, locally and remotely, and
have multiple modes of operation.
b� Sensors can be used in combination to provide a more sophisticated monitoring
regime, using logical associations with a number of sensor combinations sup-
ported simultaneously. The ability to easily reconfigure these relationships is one
of the key abilities that differentiate sensors in an intelligent system from a stan-
dard monitoring system.
c� Sensor information can be analysed in more sophisticated ways, linking easily
to other technologies, which can be supported by a combination of internal and
external analyses.
d� The same information that is required to manage energy efficiency and safety is
simultaneously available to monitor and interpret the care needs of the individual,
which offers substantial cost benefits from such systems.
2� The method and type of communication:
a� Intelligent systems, working to agreed standards, offer a variety of communication
options that aren’t restricted to proprietary interfaces, allowing for more flexible
integration into suites of technology supporting health and well-being. It is possible
to envisage a situation where system programming can be predesigned to incorpo-
rate templates for data from a whole range of health and care information streams,
which can be integrated seamlessly into whole-person management with ease, as
required. The Millennium Homes Project had a series of standardised modules that
could be activated, but these were based on the existing array of sensors, which
were implemented as algorithms on a PC. With a smart house infrastructure, tem-
plates could be preconfigured based on generic input possibilities such as binary
inputs, analogue inputs or dynamic parameter passing, using recognised calling
protocols within familiar computing environments or dedicated gateways.
b� Intelligent infrastructures are capable of using more than one communication
interface or medium simultaneously, particularly being able to manage local and
remote communication response protocols in tandem. The distributed nature
of the intelligence also means that this can be achieved without compromise of
system performance. This offers the flexibility to adapt to whatever standards are
being applied to other aspects of the home technology system and whatever exter-
nal services are proposed or envisaged.