I.L.S.A. for Researchers

The overall program goal for the Independent LifeStyle Assistant TM monitoring system (I.L.S.A.) is to construct a home-based behavior monitoring system that helps the elderly remain in their homes longer To achieve this goal, we will design and develop an intelligent automation system that transforms current appliances and sensing devices such as security and motion detection into an assisted environment

State of the Art

Other programs and companies currently provide devices that address specific situations (pacemaker information routing, medical monitoring, smoke detection, fall monitoring, and so on) or data integration that allows communication between devices. Each of these capabilities is important, but limited. A smart device, limited to its own domain of interest, may provide assistance that is radically inappropriate to the situation or the current needs of the elder -- such as the smart refrigerator reminding the client that she needs to order milk after she has fallen in the kitchen. Networked devices can communicate with each other, but enabling them to provide useful shared behaviors remains limited and costly. For example, having the refrigerator and a fall detector "talk" to each other requires building customized control logic to integrate input from the two units. Such customization must be repeated for each pair of devices or sensors throughout the house.

I.L.S.A. Breakthrough

I.L.S.A. will go beyond the current state of the art to provide knowledge integration -- an intelligent, aware assistant that supervises and integrates the behaviors of home devices. Knowledge integration provides a means for individual devices to post information they have detected and behaviors they can perform. The reasoning system uses the collected data to infer what is happening in the home and make control decisions based on the inference. Keep in mind that I.L.S.A. will be highly customizable --- responding to the needs, preferences, and capabilities of each client, the client's caregivers and their needs and authorizations, and to the equipment and setting in which I.L.S.A. is installed.