Smart bedroom for the elderly with gesture and posture analyses using Kinect

The elderly spend most of their time at home largely due to either physical or financial limitations. Thus, a significant number of them are socially isolated from family members and friends. This situation is more pronounced in an ageing society where people 60 aged years or older make up at least 10% of a country’s population. There are some existing systems that equip homes with advanced and expensive sensing devices in order to improve the quality of life of the elderly. However, most people cannot afford access to those so-called smart homes. Therefore, we are motivated to come up with a more affordable, simple but effective system that can work in a smallerscale setting like a bedroom. Our system leverages the Kinect’s infrared sensing capability, which can effectively identify a human skeleton both in daytime and nighttime. The skeletal joints are used to perform gestural and postural analyses in order to help the elderly do the following tasks: using a forearm to point and toggle electric devices between on and off modes; using the forearm to wave for a need of assistance; getting a warning of a possible risk of bed falling or of oversleeping past the usual wakeup time; and keeping record of different poses such as sitting, sitting on floor, standing and lying down.