Title: A smart safety cane for human fall detection

Authors: Ping-Hsu Chen; Yung-Hui Li; Che Wun Chiou; Chiou-Yng Lee; Jim-Min Lin

Addresses: Department of Information Engineering and Computer Science, Feng Chia University, Taichung City, 407, Taiwan; Corning Display Technologies – Taiwan, Taichung City, 407, Taiwan ' Department of Computer Science and Information Engineering, National Central University, Chungli, Taoyuan County, 320, Taiwan ' Department of Computer Science and Information Engineering, Chien Hsin University of Science and Technology, Chungli, Taoyuan County, 320, Taiwan ' Department of Computer Information and Network Engineering, Lunghwa University of Science and Technology, New Taipei City, 333, Taiwan ' Department of Information Engineering and Computer Science, Feng Chia University, Taichung City, 407, Taiwan

Abstract: Lots of countries have gradually become an aging society, therefore, the safety issues of the elderly attract more and more attentions. Falling is one of the major reasons for the accidental injuries of the elderly, and many times such accidents have become irreparable regrets because of the delayed arrival of the ambulances. In this study, we propose to attach to the cane with intelligent embedded system with acceleration detection ability. Such system is able to collect the 3D acceleration data of the cane when it is used by the elderly in real time. We analyse the data with finite state machine in order to detect the fall accidents of the elderly. The smart cane is able to send alarm and location of the elderly to the hospital as soon as such accidents are detected, so that the ambulance can be dispatched immediately after the accident happened.

Keywords: ubiquitous computing; embedded systems; android smart phones; smart safety canes; human fall detection; FSM; finite-state machine; ageing population; elderly; acceleration detection; falling accidents; smart canes; remote monitoring; fall alarms; fall location.

DOI: 10.1504/IJAHUC.2015.071662

International Journal of Ad Hoc and Ubiquitous Computing, 2015 Vol.20 No.1, pp.49 - 65

Received: 22 Apr 2013
Accepted: 16 Nov 2013

Published online: 14 Sep 2015 *

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