Many gerotechnology devices are intended to help older adults improve health self-management and maintain independence. By including older adults throughout the design process, health technologies can be designed to meet their unique needs and preferences. This study investigated older adults' perceptions of prototypes for a Wireless Event detection and Adherence Monitoring System (WEAMS). The WEAMS is a neckwear technology that would have the capability to assist with managing medication, tracking activity levels, and detecting falls. Twelve older adults (M age = 77.7; SD = 7.13; 9 female, 3 male) completed inhome interviews on wearable health technologies and evaluated three non-functioning WEAMS prototypes on various aspects of ease of use, comfort, and desirability. Participants preferred prototypes with discrete design features and that were easy to put on and take off. Open-ended participant comments revealed a strong preference for the system to blend in with the user's attire and not draw unwanted attention. Moreover, this study found perceived need to be an important factor in older adults' acceptance of the WEAMS. Findings from this study will guide the design of the WEAMS neckwear and future wearable health technologies.
This work presents the design, implementation and experimental evaluation of the control system for a Fuel Cell Hybrid Vehicle (FCHV). The main objective of this paper is to develop control strategies for a real vehicle which has been designed in order to demonstrate the feasibility of the use of hydrogen as an energy source for automotive applications. The hybrid vehicle is driven by an array of batteries and a bank of two fuel cells. The control system is designed and tested in order to perform all the operations related to the coordinated operation of the fuel cells, the intermediate electrical storage and the power train. Real-time power management is done in order to satisfy the power demand of the electric motor taking into account the state of charge of the batteries and the operating regime of the fuel cells. An embedded controller has been installed to manage the power distribution between the fuel-cell bank and the batteries and a supervisor has also been designed and tested. An important contribution to be noticed is the development of a power management strategy devised to split the power between both fuel cells. Besides, a low-level controller has been implemented to regulate temperature and air excess ratio in the cells. Some experimental results are presented in order to show the vehicle performance. The proposed hybrid vehicle, tested under real driving conditions, has demonstrated a high robustness and reliability.
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