First steps in data fusion between a multichannel audio acquisition and an information system for home healthcare

The health integrated smart home information system (HIS2) has been developed in the TIMC laboratory for the remote monitoring of the health status of the elderly at home. This aims at improving patients´ living conditions and at avoiding the costs of the long hospitalization. The design of this system is based on a CAN network linked to volumetric, physiological and environment sensors. Collaboration between the TIMC and the CLIPS laboratories permitted us to replace the video camera, unacceptable to patients for obvious privacy reasons, with a system based on multichannel sound acquisition. The coupling of both systems will enable them to detect if a person is in distress or not. Both systems locally process in real time the incoming data and communicate using a CAN network to display the health status. This article describes briefly the architecture of both systems, practical solutions for their communication, and their data fusion which is the beginning of a new step in the health smart homes domain.