A new washable low-cost garment for everyday fall detection

In this paper, a new garment for automatic fall detection and alert is presented for the first time. It includes a washable pullover with integrated acceleration sensors, evaluation and control electronics. The system measures the accelerations at the torso and on the arms in three directions in spa...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:2010 Annual International Conference of the IEEE Engineering in Medicine and Biology 2010-01, p.6377-6380
Main Authors: Niazmand, Khalil, Jehle, Claudius, D'Angelo, Lorenzo T, Lueth, Tim C
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Acceleration
Accelerometers
Batteries
Conferences
Senior citizens
Sensors
Online Access:Request full text
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Summary:In this paper, a new garment for automatic fall detection and alert is presented for the first time. It includes a washable pullover with integrated acceleration sensors, evaluation and control electronics. The system measures the accelerations at the torso and on the arms in three directions in space. The fall detection is based on recognizing, by means of the sensors, the posture and abnormal acceleration magnitudes usually associated to a fall. The alarm as well as the movement information is sent via a wireless radio link. A fall will be detected within the pullover's electronics. The fall detection system was tested on ten volunteers. The daily life movements are also stored on a memory card. The latter can be read in on a PC. Thanks to an optimized production process, the system can be affordably reproduced in low volume productions and can be adjusted for any usage. The power supply of the system is realized with rechargeable batteries.
ISSN:1094-687X
1558-4615
DOI:10.1109/IEMBS.2010.5627298