Designing a Video Monitoring System for AAL applications: The SPHERE Case Study

IT based Healthcare platforms have been widely recognized by research communities and institutions as key players in the future of home-based health monitoring and care. Features like personalised care, continuous monitoring, and reduced costs are fostering the research and use of these technologies. In this paper, we describe the design and implementation of the video monitoring system of the SPHERE platform (Sensor Platform for Healthcare in a Residential Environment). SPHERE aims to develop a smart home platform based on low cost, non-medical sensors. We present a detailed description of the hardware and software infrastructure designed and tested in real life scenarios, with particular emphasis on the design considerations employed to foster collaboration, the real time and budget constraints, and mid-scale deployment plan of our case study.