Sensors and Data Analytics for Smart Homes

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The long-term objective of this project is to design smart homes that are capable of monitoring the health and wellbeing of their occupants. The project focusses on the design of smart homes for the independent living of seniors. Keeping seniors active in their own homes longer improves their quality of life, cognition and mobility. Furthermore, the proposed solutions could detect early signs of health deterioration which could lead to better medical outcomes and healthy aging. This research program is divided into 3 projects. The first project deals with the detection and characterization of sound events in the environment. The objectives of this project is to recognize coughing, snoring and distress sounds such as screaming. Classification algorithms will be proposed to monitor respiratory conditions and react to emergencies. The second project proposes using a bed-based smart pressure-sensitive mat solution to monitor breathing, bed exit characteristics, and weight distribution of bed occupants. The objective of this project is the early detection of some health conditions such sleep apnea, sleep quality problems, instability and Congestive Heart Failure (CHF). In CHF body fluid accumulates in the lower limbs during the day and dissipates to the rest of the body at night. The third project proposes novel context-aware sensor fusion solutions to maximize the information extracted from the sensors. Deep learning algorithms will use sensor modality substitution where a sensor designed to measure a certain modality (e.g. temperature) is used to measure another modality (e.g. water flow). The objective of this project is to improve the system performance, reliability and cost. In each case, the project will critically assess existing systems, evaluates possible solutions and recommend feasible ones. The work will be conducted by graduate students who will gain valuable multidisciplinary training and will be encouraged to publish their work in the most prestigious journals and conferences. We expect that in addition to the academic and societal impacts described above, the project will have a significant economic development potential. The proposed solutions will create new business opportunities for Canadian companies in the area of health and wellbeing monitoring in homes and long-term care facilities. This includes multinational telecom companies looking for creating vertical markets, cloud-based data analytics companies looking for new services, and home security companies looking at expanding their scope. It will also create new entrepreneurship opportunities for start-up companies in the area of sensor and data analytics. In order to ensure that our proposed solutions are feasible, our research team will be interacting on a regular basis with potential users (technology acceptance, needs assessment, ease of use, privacy), healthcare professionals, policy makers and industrial designers.