HELPER: a home assisted and cost effective living system for people with disabilities and homebound elderly

Abstract

Although there has been significant research and development on automation devices for assisted living, there has always been trade-offs in terms of the cost, complexity, design and efficiency. Numerous researchers have published path-breaking systems & techniques over the years in this regard but the cost & complexity has always been an issue. In this work, a state-of-the-art simple and efficient yet cost effective reconfigurable assisted living system is proposed and implemented which will cater for the needs of bed-ridden patients, people with disability and senior citizens. The distinct feature which makes this implementation unique is its low cost, low power consuming hardware and user-friendly control, hence the user can operate the system without any external assistance. Additionally, the proposed work is an astute combination of embedded systems & Labview developement environment which provides a good headstart towards Internet of Things (IoT) concept. Also, It provides multitude of input options to the user like Direct DTMF mode, Voice Recognition mode, GSM call remote monitoring mode, Internet cloud monitoring mode & direct remote controlled mode, by integrating cellular communication and Zigbee protocol based wireless devices with internet.