Automatic detection of activities of daily living from detecting and classifying electrical events on the residential power line

The objective of this project is the remote follow up of the activities of patients living independently in their own home, with the help of ICT. The sensing of activity in the home has a variety of important applications, including home automation, energy monitoring and healthcare. Most of the existing systems for detecting occupant activity require large numbers of sensors, invasive vision systems, or extensive installation procedures. We present an approach that uses a single sensor to detect the electrical events throughout the home. This sensor detects and identifies the electrical impulses on residential power lines created by the on-off switching of electrical devices. The electrical events are regularly downloaded to a central data base with a web access.