Faculty of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science System Software Laboratory University of Maribor

Observation of appearance and physiological parameters in elderly to assess the aptness of their independent living

(Scientific collaboration between the Republic of Slovenia and the Republic of India from Jan. 1, 2015 to Dec. 31, 2017)

A. Aim

Ageing population and limited healthcare budgets call for new paradigms and more efficient healthcare and medical services. Within the framework of this research project, we are dealing with unobtrusive observations of human vital functions in order to determine the aptness of observed person for independent living.

The human biopotentials, movement, posture, and balance during daily activity in home environments are investigated by using intelligent (capacitive) sensors. Special signal-processing algorithms are studied to infer whether the person is apt to continue the independent living. We intend to combine the sensor measurements and the information extracted from the videos in order to obtain more reliable and easier recognition of daily activities of the monitored person. Video processing contributes the analysis of the following situations: person and his/her posture (sitting, standing, walking, running, lying and the lying position) detection and gesture recognition.

The final result of this project development will be a prototype based on sensors and video clips for an unobtrusive and non-invasive approach to:

  1. Monitor the human vital functions, such as heartbeat, breathing, balance, physical condition;
  2. Assess the risk of falling in elderly who live independent;
  3. Monitor weight of observed persons.

B. Role of the System Software Laboratory (UM-FERI)

Both project partners will participate in all project activities, which are coordinated and adjusted by the UM-FERI team. UM-FERI is also responsible for the following research:

  • Identifying the various bio-physical signal sensors
  • On-board processing of sensory data
  • Merging of sensory and imaging data and recognition results
  • Building and testing the hardware
  • Wireless transfer of the data to a server
  • Debugging and optimization of the system
  • Testing the system operation as a whole

C. The Faculty of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science (System Software Laboratory) team

Assoc. Prof. Dr. Božidar Potočnik (Principal Investigator in Slovenia)
Prof. Dr. Damjan Zazula
Asst. Prof. Dr. Boris Cigale
Martin Šavc

D. Project partners

University of Maribor, Faculty of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science

CSIR-Central Electronics Engineering Research Institute (Foreign Principal Investigator: Prof. Dr. Jagdish Lal Raheja)


E. This project is funded by the Slovenian Research Agency within scientific cooperation between the Republic of Slovenia and the Republic of India, under Grant Agreement number BI-IN/15-17-007, "Observation of appearance and physiological parameters in elderly to assess the aptness of their independent living."