Large-area wireless sensor system based on smart textiles

Abstract

The SensFloor® is a textile-based large-area sensor system which is installed beneath the floor. It is able to detect people moving across the floor, calculating their trajectories and distinguishes between foot steps and a fall. It enables a variety of different applications like control of automatic doors, intrusion alarm and activity monitoring.

Smart home technologies that support independent living: challenges and opportunities for the building industry – a systematic mapping study

“…Building elements such as walls and ceilings are more and more used for integrating (hidden) devices (Doctor, Iqbal, and Naguib 2014;Fernandez-Luque et al 2013;Grierson et al 2011;Helal et al 2012;Jimenez et al 2013;Lauterbach, Steinhage, and Techmer 2012;Mowafey and Gardner 2012;Olivier et al 2009;Raad and Yang 2009;Xian 2007) such as Internet protocol video cameras (Olivier et al 2009) and passive system antennas (Chan et al 2008), or as an interface to communicate with the inhabitants (Olivier et al 2009;Maier and Kempter 2009), for example, colour code display when an anomaly is detected (Romero et al 2009) and multitouch wall (Leusmann et al 2011).…”

“…Intelligent floors (Lee et al 2009;Lauterbach et al 2012;Rowe et al 2009) have received substantial attention during the last decade for detecting fall, for providing gait monitoring, for location tracking, or for detecting presence and/or activity. They may be instrumented with accelerometers (Li 2013), piezoelectric sensors (Alwan 2009;Klack et al 2011;Leusmann et al 2011), (capacitive) pressure sensors (Olivier et al 2009;Helal et al 2012;Hoey et al 2011;Stefanov, Bien, and Bang 2004), micro-electro-mechanical systems (MEMS) (Fernandez-Luque et al 2013;Helal et al 2012), or innovative sensors using the near-field imaging principle (reported in Leone, Diraco, and Siciliano 2013), but the solution of a ready-to-be-used pressure-sensitive textile layer (Hanson, Barth, and Silverman 2011;Lauterbach et al 2012), called a presence mat or pressure mat, has been popular since the last years .…”

“…They may be instrumented with accelerometers (Li 2013), piezoelectric sensors (Alwan 2009;Klack et al 2011;Leusmann et al 2011), (capacitive) pressure sensors (Olivier et al 2009;Helal et al 2012;Hoey et al 2011;Stefanov, Bien, and Bang 2004), micro-electro-mechanical systems (MEMS) (Fernandez-Luque et al 2013;Helal et al 2012), or innovative sensors using the near-field imaging principle (reported in Leone, Diraco, and Siciliano 2013), but the solution of a ready-to-be-used pressure-sensitive textile layer (Hanson, Barth, and Silverman 2011;Lauterbach et al 2012), called a presence mat or pressure mat, has been popular since the last years . The same technologies can be used for detecting sofa/bed/chair occupancy (Almudevar et al 2008;Cruz-Sanchez et al 2012;Fernandez-Luque et al 2013;Hilbe et al 2010;Kosse et al 2013;Muñoz et al 2011;Palumbo et al 2014;Suryadevara et al 2013;Raad and Yang 2009;Zhang, Hariz, and Mokhtari 2008).…”

Human tracking and identification using a sensitive floor and wearable accelerometers

“…SensFloor is a textile-based large-area sensor system comprised of an underlay with embedded microelectronic modules, which can be seamlessly installed underneath the floor [2] [1]. Using capacitance proximity sensing, as opposed to pressure sensitive floors [3][5], allows for its installation beneath both soft (i.e.…”

“…In this paper, we show how we use SensFloor [1], a textilebased large-area sensor system, comprised of a grid of capacitive sensor plates under the floor, for human localization and tracking. The sensor system does not allow for a natural user identification (as in [3]), however, the capacitive measurement approach provides more flexibility when it comes to the floor covering.…”