A Device Middleware-Based Smart Home Environment for Ambient Health Care

The growing elderly population in the developed countries is increasingly forced to live independently. They are being remotely monitored, reminded, recommended and cared by a stream of care givers, providers, doctors, etc. The enabling technologies and devices are also growing fast. Firstly the room or house wherein the patient lives has been equipped and saturated with a host of multifaceted, multi-channel, multimedia, and multimodal sensors / actuators, robots, displays, appliances etc. Another noteworthy development is the powerful emergence of communication protocols and connectivity solutions, web-enabled devices, device-specific and agnostic services. To enable these diverse participants, to find one another, correspond and collaborate together dynamically and cognitively to understand the prevailing situation and needs of the patient, conceive and construct composite services for patient-centric, sophisticated and smart. In short, smart environments, wherein the ambient intelligence is the norm, are being created and sustained leveraging calm, cognitive and catalytic technologies.