CAALYX project validated by end-users

The fourth meeting for the validation of the CAALYX European project took place in Ancona (Italy) at the COOSS Marche facilities on 10, 11 and 12 October 2007.

In order to prepare field experiments with end-users, this meeting was preceded by intensive sessions regarding the integration of the technologic platform (hardware and software).

The event  succeeded in demonstrating the integrated system and all its advantages, such as sensors, BAN (Body Area Network) management platform and vital signs monitoring, medical observations communication between the mobile device and Caretaker's facilities (Caretaker monitors and provides health care services), registering and/or handling any kind of emergency.

The two following weeks were used for field experiments which were widely accepted by the end-users. Based on the results and suggestions that were obtained, the system's practical implementation documents are currently being concluded.

The CAALYX project is being developed at INESC Porto's Information and Communication Systems Unit (USIC). The project is financed by the FP6 IST programme within the "Ambient Assisted Living" Strategic Objective.

Offering remote monitoring services, its main goal is to guarantee more autonomy to the elder population who often requires medical assistance.

For that, the project is developing a Wearable Light Device (WLD) in order to identify specific vital signs. In fact, it not only guarantees a fall detection system, but also an efficient and real time autonomous communication with Caretaker and other emergency medical services. The emergency information includes geographic positioning and an integrated observation report.

Besides INESC Porto, there are also other partners working on this project, such as Telefónica I+D (Spain), COOSS Marche (Italy), Synkronix (UK), University of Plymouth (UK), University of Limerick (Ireland), ABAT (Spain) and CORS Science (Germany).

INESC Porto is the project's technical coordinator and responsible for the WP5 System Implementation while TID (Telefónica I+D) is the financial and administrative coordinator.

The project's team is coordinated by Artur Rocha and Ângelo Martins.