An Assistive Integrated Platform (AIP) for active ageing: the HicMO project

Active ageing is actually one of the key topics of European research mainly due to rapidly population ageing, increasing cost of health care, and growing importance of living independently (1). Active ageing basically means helping people stay in charge of their own lives as long as possible as they age and, where possible, contribute to economy and society. In order to achieve this goal, assistive technologies and ambient- assisted intelligence are applied to enable people to live at home longer and better by tools (i.e. smart objects, intelligent devices) being sensitive and responsive to their presence, conditions and actions. The research describes the development of an Assis- tive Integrated Platform (AIP) that follows used-centered design (UCD) principles and merges domotic and assistive components. The system consists of a central intelli- gence (i.e. Integration Platform (IP)), a network of Smart Objects sharing information from/to the IP, and a set of gateways enabling communication with home automation systems. A laboratory has been set-up to carry out usability tests with users.