MUS3E: A Mobility Ubiquitous Sensor Edge Environment for the Elderly

Abstract

With the ageing of society, the number of households with older individuals or couples living alone is increasing. An “ageing-in-place” approach allows older adults to continue to live at home and receive help only when needed. However, this approach is insufficient for emergencies, such as falls, as well as for individuals with gradually deteriorating health conditions, such as frailty. Unexpected accidents significantly reduce the quality of life (QoL) of older adults. This paper proposes a new framework, the mobility ubiquitous sensor edge environment (MUS3E), to digitally transform ordinary houses to detect the movement of older individuals throughout their home environment and to notify family members and care providers of residents’ health status and safety information. The framework can be easily and inexpensively installed in any home, transforming an ordinary house into a smart home with an automated function for monitoring older residents. It uses ambient sensors such as passive infrared ray sensors to automatically measure health conditions by measuring factors such as walking speed. Residents need not interact with or control the system and can go about their daily lives. Since the sensors used in this system are mass-produced consumer products, they are inexpensive and easily replaceable, as there are many alternatives. In this study, we were able to demonstrate the practically and feasibility of this framework using a prototype that uses open architecture Internet of Things (IoT) software (Debian GNU/Linux 11, Arduino 1.8.19, ESP8266 2.7.4, ESP32 1.0.6, PubSubClient 2.8.0, ESPPerfectTime 0.3.0, mosquitto 2.0.11) components to digitally transform the living environment of older individuals.