An Elderly First Aid System Based-Fall Detection and Unmanned Aerial Vehicle

Abstract

A first-aid system is proposed for monitoring elderly patients who risk falling based on fall detection system (FDs) and for providing the first aid kit from an emergency call centre (ECC) to them by using an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV). In previous studies, the measurement accuracy of falls and heart rate was not sufficiently accurate. In addition, determination of UAV delivery time is also crucial and can save lives. In this work, the proposed system aims to determine patient falls and accurately measure heart rate and reduce UAV delivery time to patients. The FDs was practically implemented based on heartbeat and accelerometer sensors, a microcontroller, a GSM module, and GPS. While, a UAV, a first aid kit, and Smartphone were adopted in an ECC. Falls were accurately detected based on elderly fall detection (EFD) algorithm. The result showed that the proposed FDs was succeeded in monitoring elderly patients' vital signs with a fall detection accuracy of 99.11%. In addition, the UAV succeeded in all missions and arrived at the patient's locations before the ambulance in urban areas, with an average time saving of 1.75 min. The proposed elderly first aid system outperformed previous systems presented in terms of fall detection and UAV arrival time.