PRE2016 4 Groep1
Group Members
- Sjoerd van Helden 0893960
- Stijn Middelhuis 0947014
- Roy Niemark 0956824
- Andrei Pintillie 0980402
- Dennis Struver 0955477
Week 1 and 2
Below the progress after the first two weeks is given. There has been worked on several different assignments and the work of the first week is improved.
Meeting outcome
Agreements for meetings: Monday after presentation/feedback we have a meeting of 1 hour. After that we can work on the divided Self Study Assignments (SSA’s) if we want but that is optional. When needed, there can also be a meeting planned at thursday afternoon.
Keep our wiki up to date, the wiki will be checked on Sunday evening for the feedback on Monday.
Possible subjects:
- SMART Home for children – Make the house safe for children, lock doors, keep cabinets locked, give alerts to the parent, turn down the hot water. Important: Cost (USE perspective).
- Educational robot for children with autism – Help children with autism get more communicative.
- Distribution robot – Distribute the right amount of medicine to an elderly person at the times he/she has to take his/her medicine.
- Green energy – Solar panels.
Assignments and results
Subject
The safety of a child. For a parent this is all that matters. But keeping their child safe all time is a very time consuming job. Having to constantly watch the child and making sure the activity the child is performing is safe costs a lot of time and effort. Therefore it is important to give the parents a little freedom and time for themselves from time to time. To help the parents achieve this, we have come up with an idea that helps the parents in keeping their child safe at home. The parents have less to worry about and a little more freedom, but still have to keep an eye at their child, since it helps with keeping the child safe, but does not guarantee total safety.
The concept we came up with is a SMART Home that enhances the safety of children. The concept will be installable in every house with the right equipment. The house will then provide certain actions to keep the children safe. For example, if the mother has to go to a neighbor, normally she would have to take the child with her. But with this SMART Home she can leave the child at home for those couple of minutes and the house will keep the child safe while the mother is away.
The concept can be used for children of an age between 1 and 9 years old. In this age-category, children are most likely to have serious accidents at home. Also, children at that age are able to move around the house and interact with object by itself, but are not able to stay at home by themselves. The SMART Home keeps the child away from dangerous situations and/or objects, and when it is not able to keep the child away it will alert the parents. For example, when the system detects that the child is near a sink with hot water, it shuts down the hot water so the child can not burn itself.
Objectives
The general aim of the project is to research a system that is able to detect whether there is a child in the room or an adult. Because the system should be able to tell the difference between those. The child is at much less risk when an adult is in the room with it. The system does only have to notify the parent if there is only an adult in the room and no further actions, so therefore it is also important to be able to distinguish them. The SMART Home system has implementations all over the house that it can use to enhance the safety of the child.
The following objectives can be derived from this aim:
O1: Research the potential dangers, and potential prevention
To be able to implement a system that protect children from dangers, we first need to know the most occurring accidents that children have at home. When searching for accidents that happen at home, there also has to be looked at how this can be prevented. For example, a child falling from the stairs can be prevented by making the stair inaccessible for a child when there is no adult in the neighborhood.
O2: Danger recognition and prevention
When the potential dangers are known, it is important that the system is able to recognize these dangers. The dangers that have to be prevented need to be implemented into the system, and the action that belongs to preventing the danger also has to be implemented. So for the same example as in O1, the system has to recognize that the child is closing in on the stairs and has to prevent it from having access to the stairs, so it closes the gate installed in front of the stairs.
O3: Person recognition
To be able to distinguish an adult from a child, the system has to be able to recognize persons. The system only has to take actions when a child is alone in a room or not supervised when the adult is with it.
O4: Implementation of the needed compartments for the system to work
For the system to work, the house is needed to have certain things installed in the house already. For example, if a child is in the kitchen the knife drawer should be able to be locked by the system, therefore lockable drawers already have to be installed in the house. The requirements for this should be determined and the communication and installation of the system including these compartments.
O5: Making the system easy to implement and removed
Since the system only works for children from age 1 to 9, the system should be easy installable and removable. Because the intended audience for this system are children between 1 and 8 years old, the system has a specific task that gets reduced every year.
Goal
Since today's technology goes pretty far already, there is a lot possible considering a SMART Home. Yet when this needs to be adapted and be a perfect fit for your child's safety, some factors and aspects needs to be improved for this purpose. Our goal is to research such a SMART Home system that focusses on the safety of the child. Looking into the possibilities and the necessary techniques. Researching, analysing and concluding the detection hardware that such a system will need to distinguish children from other subjects and what will be the best option. Since the detection is the most important part of this system this needs to be viable in order to let the system work and will get the most attention. Also working out the design question for such a system and elaborating its operating. Finally evaluate the design and research by example situations, simulations and analysis about the pros and cons and requirements.
Concise goals:
- Researching the subject and get enough knowledge
- Research the detection part of the system
- Work out a comparison for all detection and recognition possibilities
- Working out the design question for such a SMART Home system
- Elaborating the operating of the SMART Home design with different situations and simulations
- Giving a complete front to end research about detection technologies with the respect to a SMART Home system designed for the safety of children and evaluate such a system using comparisons and simulations of the design
Approach
First we are going to study the contemplated subject. We will set goals, make assumptions and discuss what we want to have in the end with the respect to the USE perspective. We are going to focus on an average environment and will extend from there. At the start we are going to do research on the projects about similar subjects that already exist and look at what is possible in this project with the current technology. Also we want to know the basics about children in their home, frequent accidents and injuries that occur and preferences of parents in general. In this project, extra attention will be given to the recognition software and detection part of the SMART home. Research will be done about different hardware possibilities and their connection to this project. In the end the options will be presented with their pros and cons and why it will or will not be possible to use, with the respect to detection of children and distinguish them from other subjects within the house. With this knowledge and the set goals we will evaluate the SMART Home safety system and go through different situations and simulate how that will play out.
Project planning
For a project it is important to have a good project planning. Below the planning for this project is given. The weekplanning and a role distribution is made to keep track of the progress and provide a guideline while working on this project. The planning follows the process and sets several milestones that are important to achieve. The planning is made at the begin of the project and has some room for adjustments, if necessary. The first two weeks are dedicated mainly to doing background research and problem defining. In the third week the subject will be conceptualized to a more specific and detailed design question. In this week, there is also a start made with the research about the detection possibilities which will be done until week 6. Weeks 4 and 5 are also dedicated to working out a designed system that satisfies the design question. The process, decisions and problems should be checked and elaborated. In week 7 conclusions concerning the research about the various detection technologies should be made and the designed system should be evaluated with different situations, simulations and an analysis. During every week, the wiki should be updated with the progress made up until that point. The last week is dedicated to preparing for the final presentation and finalizing the wiki. The weekplanning below contains some more specific detail to the different steps that need to be taken in this project.
The general approach of this project consists of the following milestones:
- Research background, state of the art and similar existing systems
- Research detection and recognition technologies with the respect to our subject
- Conceptualize and working out a specific and detailed design question
- Make conclusions and recommendations for the detection possibilities
- Evaluate the designed system with simulations and work out possible extensions or adjustments
- Evaluate the cost, benefit and impact of SMART Home system and the detection possibilities
Weekplanning
Week 1
- Determine the subject
- Formulate the problem
- Create idea’s for a concept
- Objectives
- Involved users
- Research about background, state of the art and similar existing systems
- Create planning and presentation
Week 2
- Continuing the research
- Children and accidents
- Existing SMART Homes and its collaboration with safety measures
- Typical house environments for children
- State of the art technology that could be implemented or used.
- Existing systems made for safety of children
- User benefit
- Determine important and critical points of interest
- Look into the subject from a USE perspective and determine relevant USE aspects
Week 3
- Finish the background research (Milestone 1)
- Start research about the detection possibilities
- Existing technologies
- Requirements and options for this project
- How and what can be accomplished in our project with which technology
- State-of-the-art options
- Conceptualize the subject to a specific and detailed design question (Milestone 2)
- Composition of the room
- Components (technological) which can be used
- Elaboration of the design requirements
Week 4
- Continue the research about detection possibilities
- Work out a design that satisfies the subjects design question
- Design
- Requirements
- Implementations
Week 5
- Continue research about detection possibilities
- Continue working out the design
- Adjust and/or extend the conceptualization definition if necessary
- Use of the research that is already done
- Start with the simulations of the design
- Determine the best way to do this
- Determine different situations
Week 6
- Finish research about detection possibilities (Milestone 3)
- Start making conclusions and recommendations for the detection possibilities
- Finish the designed system according to the design question (Milestone 2)
- Elaboration of the designed system:
- Process, decisions, result and problems on the wiki
- List of possible extensions
- Approximate cost and risk prevention for this design
- Continue the simulations with the finished design
Week 7
- Finish the detection possibility analysis (Milestone 4)
- Conclusions
- Recommendations
- Implementation in the SMART Home system
- Evaluate the SMART Home design and work out possible extensions (Milestone 5)
- Simulate different situations and elaborate
- Optional implementations/extensions
- Evaluate the cost, benefit and impact of the SMART Home system and detection possibilities (Milestone 6)
- Impact and shortcomings
- Cost and benefit analysis
- Create presentation
Week 8
- Finish, prepare and give the presentation
- Finish the wiki
- Reorganize if necessary
- Check the progress
- Complete the final wiki page
Role distribution
| Task name | Start | End | Duration (days) | Role distribution |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Determine the subject | 24-4-2017 | 25-4-2017 | 1 | Everyone |
| Create the planning | 24-4-2017 | 1-5-2017 | 7 | Dennis, Roy |
| Background and state of the art research | 24-4-2017 | 8-5-2017 | 14 | Sjoerd, Andrei |
| USE perspective and aspects | 24-4-2017 | 8-5-2017 | 14 | Stijn, Dennis, Roy |
| Research detection possibility | 8-5-2017 | 22-5-2017 | 3 | Sjoerd, Roy, Andrei |
| Conceptualize and design | 8-5-2017 | 11-5-2017 | 3 | Dennis, Stijn |
| Elaborate the design | 22-5-2017 | 25-5-2017 | 3 | Sjoerd, Stijn |
| Research processing | 22-5-2017 | 25-5-2017 | 3 | Sjoerd, Dennis |
| Simulations | 25-5-2017 | 7-6-2017 | 13 | Roy, Stijn, Andrei |
| Evaluate the research | 7-6-2017 | 12-6-2017 | 5 | Dennis, Roy |
| Evaluate the design | 7-6-2017 | 12-6-2017 | 5 | Sjoerd, Andrei, Stijn |
Gantt Chart
Users
The primary users of the system are the parents of the children and the children themselves. The parents are the one that will buy the system. The parent will have the system installed into their house, and will expect the system to help them protect their children. The children are the ones that the systems is designed for and are therefore also primary users, however the children will barely know that the system is there. The secondary users of the system are older children, nannies and other people who visit the house. The secondary users will know that the system is there and will sometimes notice it’s actions, but will not be affected by it most of the time. When a secondary user is in the room with a child that is protected by the house, the actions of the system will be slightly different since the child is under supervision at that moment. The tertiary users are the technicians. The technicians have to make sure that the system is easily installed and removed. They will also be the ones that conduct maintenance when necessary.
Research outcomes
Home related accidents
Nowadays, there is a big factor that influence the life of children all around the globe which is represented by the dangers in their own environment, in their own homes. According to rospa article[1], more than £275 million a year is spend for these types of accidents. Even if the word “home” should mean a high level of safety, relaxation and good mood, there are cases where it might endanger the life of people you love. According to another article[2], most of the accidents take place at home. Children below nine are more exposed than the older kids, mostly because of unconscious acts that they do not percept.
As presented in the diagram above, children below one year have the highest chance to be implied in an accident, mostly because of suffocation and choking caused by their curiosity to examine things around them by putting the objects in their mouths. The most severe injuries are associated with heat-related accidents and falls from high places, so even if the most accidents were encountered in the living/dining room, the most serious ones happen in the kitchen and on the stairs. According to the World Health Organization[3], most of the heat related accidents happened because of hot liquids(scalds), hot solids(contact burns), or flames(flame burns). These accidents regularly lead ask for hospitalization and longtime recovery. Often it leads to a lack of self-esteem and public rejection, which for a kid could affect the entire life. So, a good way to stop the curiosity of children to play with matches or taste hot liquids is more than necessary. Regarding the falls, around 10 children die each year by this accident. But, mostly, children that fall from stairs or high places encounter trauma and possible some visible post-accident problems.
Other home related accidents are poisoning and drowning.
Another study[4] states that more than two million calls per year are about exposure to poison, from which almost all of them occur at home and 80% are related to children between 1 and 4 years. As stated in the same article, the first tip to prevent poisoning is to install locks/childproof latches on all cabinets to restrict access to children, but in most cases, to keep a physical key is not really easy and it costs you a lot of time to lock/unlock it. Also, you might forget to lock it back, in case which just one mistake can cost the life of your beloved child. This tip is strong enough because it includes most of the others inside it(“store … out of reach and out of sight of children”, “make sure medications are in child-resistant containers”).
Related to drowning it is known that infants do not know how to swim, float or avoid dangerous situations, so just a few cm height of water can provoke drowning. According to [5], children aged between 1 and 4 have the highest drowning rate. From all the possible accidents, almost one third are related to drowning which often occurs in the home swimming pools. In this case, the parent shall be almost in permanent presence of the child, but in any special circumstances, a system that will announce you in time, or prevent the accident can be handy.
[1]http://www.rospa.com/home-safety/advice/child-safety/accidents-to-children/
[3] http://www.who.int/mediacentre/factsheets/fs365/en/
[4] http://www.webmd.com/children/prevent-poisoning-home#1
[5] https://www.cdc.gov/homeandrecreationalsafety/water-safety/waterinjuries-factsheet.html
Stats and state of the art
On average, 12,175 children 0 to 19 years of age died each year in the United States from an
unintentional injury.
For children less than 1 year of age, two–thirds of injury deaths were due to suffocation. Drowning
was the leading cause injury death for those 1 to 4 years of age. For children 5 to 19 years of age, the
most injury deaths were due to being an occupant in a motor vehicle traffic crash.[3]
An estimated 9.2 million children annually had an initial emergency department visit for an
unintentional injury.
Each year, approximately 2.8 million children had an initial emergency department visit for injuries
from a fall. For children less than 1 year of age, falls accounted for over 50% of nonfatal injuries.
Falls was the leading cause of nonfatal injury for all age groups less than 15.
For children ages 0 to 9, the next two leading causes were being stuck by or against an object and
animal bites or insect stings.
Nonfatal suffocation rates were highest for those less than 1 year of age. Rates for fires or burns,
and drowning were highest for children 4 years and younger. Children 1 to 4 years of age had the
highest rates of nonfatal falls and poisoning. [3]
Between the ages of 1 and 4 and for all five-year age groups between the ages of 10 and 34,
accidents were the single most common cause of death. [4]
For children aged 1–4, the most common causes of death are external factors (22 % in 2011). In
particular, 20 % of deaths in children aged 1–4 occurred due to accidents (transport accidents, falls,
drowning and submersion, poisoning and other external causes). [5]
Neoplasm is the main cause of death among children aged 5–9 (accounting for 28 % of total causes
for this age group in 2011), followed by external causes of death (25 %). [5]
Opening door mechanics:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sliding_door_operator
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swing-door_operator
Door locking method: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smart_lock
Robot localisation:
- Robotic Room-Level Localization Using Multiple Sets of Sonar Measurements by Huaping Liu,
Fuchun Sun, Bin Fang, and Xinyu Zhang, January 2017.
- Simultaneous people tracking and robot localization in dynamic social spaces by
Dylan F. Glas, Yoichi Morales, Takayuki Kanda, Hiroshi Ishiguro and Norihiro Hagita, January
2015.
- Wireless and Pyroelectric Sensory Fusion System for Indoor Human/Robot Localization and
Monitoring by Ren C. Luo, Fellow, IEEE, and Ogst Chen, June 2013.
References:
[3] https://www.cdc.gov/safechild/child_injury_data.html
[4] http://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/index.php/Accidents_and_injuries_statistics