Ambient Assisted Living

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Ambient Assisted Living ( AAL , occasionally also "Active Assisted Living" ) comprises methods, concepts, (electronic) systems, products and services that unobtrusively support the everyday life of elderly and disabled people in a situation-dependent manner. In German usage, the term can best be translated as “everyday assistance solutions for a self-determined life”. The techniques and technologies used are user-centered, i.e. geared towards people and integrate into their immediate living environment. The technology consequently adapts to the needs of the user and not the other way around. In order to share context information, technologies in the AAL environment can sensibly be structured in a modular and networkable manner in order to exhibit pseudo-intelligent behavior. However, this property is not absolutely necessary.

The group of users of such technology is very heterogeneous. It encompasses both healthy and active elderly people who mainly use lifestyle functions to improve quality of life , through to multimorbid people who are to be able to live longer independently in their home environment. Here, the support not only limited to those directly affected, but refers explicitly nurses, doctors and family members, for example, through enhanced communication opportunities and facilitated social interaction with one.

Motivation and goal setting

The increasing development of AAL technologies is essentially driven by demographic change . AAL technology can help to absorb the massive cost increases in the healthcare sector. AAL is also motivated by the trend towards living alone and increasing demands on quality of life. AAL technologies, for example, could give people with walking difficulties or dementia longer independence in everyday life. AAL technologies also make it possible to meet the increasing needs for comfort and security, and to facilitate communication and integration with the social environment.

Application examples and scenarios

Frequently mentioned application examples are in the area of ​​security, comfort and entertainment. These include, among other things, the automatic shutdown of the stove when absent, protective measures against break-ins and context-dependent lighting, room temperature or music control, which are adapted to the habits of the user. Particularly important for Ambient Assisted Living is the ability to switch off all lamps, heaters and other electrical devices with a click on the smartphone. Getting up can also be made easier for people in need by opening the shutters automatically and switching the heating on at fixed times. Security can be improved if intelligent smoke detectors also inform relatives or neighbors if a fire is suspected. If something moves around the apartment or house at night, music, light and television simulate that someone is at home. The iWalk-Active, a rollator that can also be used for hiking, comes from research by the Swiss think tank iHomeLab .

In a mostly self-learning system , sensors are networked and their data merged and evaluated, so that routine tasks can be carried out, for example. If the resident is at risk or overwhelmed, the "thinking" system offers age-appropriate assistance, makes suggestions for problem solving, integrates external service providers (such as security companies or telemedical centers) or even triggers an emergency message.

AAL services often have a modular structure. The specification VDE-AR-E 2757-2 Service Living at Home - Requirements for Providers of Combined Services describes an example of telemedical vital signs monitoring combined with the brokerage of home-related services.

Problems and challenges with AAL

The problem is that there are no universally recognized standards or that their interoperability is not guaranteed. To avoid the problem of different standards, different gateways are often used. A popular approach to harmonizing an open gateway platform is OSGi . In principle, it is also foreseeable that the design of the corresponding gateway platforms will require harmonization with similar efforts in the context of the development of smart homes and smart grids .

Voice control makes it much easier to control functions in the networked home. In autumn 2016, for example, Amazon and its voice assistant Alexa announced the partnership with many smart home systems such as Qivicon or Innogy (formerly RWE). With Qivicon, users "have the option of activating and deactivating so-called" situations ". Situations are settings that the user specifies for their home, which correspond to their habits and are therefore automatically carried out on a regular basis. Off to bed "the light in the living room is switched off and the hallway dimmed, the heating temperature lowered and the shutters lowered. Users can create as many of these situations as they want. Voice commands such as" Alexa, tell my home that it switches the situation on from bed "then control all the functions you want - even if you don't have a smartphone or tablet at hand."

Acceptance and criticism

Since AAL systems act automatically on behalf of the user, this raises (also legal) questions about informational self-determination , for example the protection of personal data. Decisive for the acceptance and market success of such systems will therefore be the responsible balance between technically possible assistance functions on the one hand and the monitoring and data transmission required for this on the other. The following applies to systems that provide support in everyday life: “New devices and everyday routines have to be practiced. The earlier you start, the better ”. In the long term, the acceptance of such adaptive systems should be so high that they can be integrated into people's everyday lives as a matter of course (an example of such a development from the automotive sector would be ABS ).

In addition to technology and data protection, social aspects also play a role in the acceptance of ambient assisted living technologies. Questions of acceptance, mediation and advice have moved to the center of the so-called human-technology interaction in demographic change (MTIDW) in recent years. That is why the Federal Ministry of Education and Research has been funding u. a. Municipal advice centers “Live better in old age through technology”.

Classification in other research areas

AAL technologies are based on advances in microsystem technology , which, among other things, have resulted in sensors and actuators being reduced in size so that they can be integrated into the environment. Furthermore, AAL is an application domain of the technical paradigm of Ambient Intelligence , which has been hotly debated since the beginning of the 90s , which in turn sees itself as a European alternative to the more hardware-oriented ubiquitous computing (German: computer ubiquitous computing ). Closely related to this is intelligent living (“smart living”), with the focus here on the networking and automation of household appliances and less on the assistance functions of an overall adaptive system.

The information technology basis of AAL is the automation of machine behavior through artificial intelligence . Medical application scenarios for AAL are thematically related to telemonitoring .

actors

In 2004, the Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF), together with VDI / VDE Innovation + Technik GmbH and other European partners, started a "Strategic Support Action (SSA)" in the 6th framework program of the EU , with the aim of establishing a European funding program at the time prepare new topic AAL. The term was first coined by Hartmut Strese in a non-paper (December 19, 2002) for the BMBF (see JC Augusto, M. Huch et al.).

A large number of research institutes, universities, companies and committees research and work on AAL solutions. The Association of Electrical, Electronics and Information Technology (VDE) provides an overview in the form of "profiles" on its website (see web link below). As part of an "innovation partnership" with AAL initiated and funded by the Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF), a "think tank" with several working groups has been working on market analyzes and business models as well as the challenges for successful innovation communication for AAL in Germany since mid-2008.

After several years of preparation, the Ambient Assisted Living Joint Program (AAL JP) started in summer 2008 . The AAL JP is supported by the AAL Association in Brussels, founded by the representatives of the 23 participating partner countries . Germany is represented by the BMBF. Up to two thematically focused calls are to be published annually. The first call with the title “ICT based solutions for prevention and management of chronic conditions of elderly people” was carried out successfully in 2008. Call 2 "ICT based solutions for advancement of Social Interaction of Elderly People" followed in 2009, 2010 Call 3 "ICT-based Solutions for Advancement of Older Persons' Independence and Participation in the Self-Serve Society" and 2011 Call 4 "ICT based solutions for Advancement of Older Persons' Mobility ". A total of over 100 research projects are supported.

AAL in the literature

In his novel Lokaltermin from 1982, Stanisław Lem already describes life on the distant planet Entia in a state modeled on the western democracies during the Cold War, supplemented by the concept of everything that was relocated to the environment to monitor everything and counteract all approaches to the uncontrolled Intelligence in the form of the so-called Gripser - molecular actuators, fed from the energy of the planetary rotation, which help moral, ethical and legal laws to make natural laws effective - effectively a highly developed form of AAL.

Application in the world of work

In the world of work, analogous to ambient assisted living , ambient assisted working is also used.

literature

Web links

. BMFT research project autonomous learning home automation system. http://www.living-care.de/

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ '' With 300 euros the home becomes a smart home '' . welt.de. Retrieved October 24, 2014.
  2. ↑ '' Even more smart possibilities '' ( Memento of the original from March 4, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. . qivicon.com. Retrieved October 24, 2014.  @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.qivicon.com
  3. ↑ '' Remain independent as long as possible '' . Aargauer Zeitung July 2, 2015, p. 15. Retrieved February 26, 2016
  4. ↑ VDE-AR-E 2757-2 Service Living at Home ( Memento of the original from October 31, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. on the website of the German Commission for Electrical, Electronic and Information Technologies of DIN and VDE, accessed on June 13, 2012  @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.dke.de
  5. ↑ `` Alexa, off to bed! '' , Deutsche Telekom media information from September 14, 2016, accessed on November 23, 2016
  6. ↑ Technical assistance for dementia , online article from April 29, 2017 (link checked on April 30, 2017)
  7. ↑ Technologies for the aging society: Researchers at the Harz University of Applied Sciences deal with questions of acceptance. kat-netzwerk.de, accessed on April 16, 2015
  8. ↑ Change2009 - Ambient Assisted Working  ( page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. Program of a workshop on ambient assisted working .@1@ 2Template: Dead Link / www.workability-innovation.eu