Concept and design of a video monitoring system for activity recognition and fall detection

Abstract

A video monitoring system is presented which aims to detect falls and other critical situations of people living single. Seniors are particularly likely to experience high-risk situations. If, for example, an elderly person falls and cannot call for help independently, it often takes hours or even days until the emergency is noticed and assistance will be provided. The presented video monitoring system is to mitigate situations of this kind. If an emergency is detected, an automatic alarm will be raised. One of the main aspects of the developed assistance system is to be as unobtrusive as possible to achieve a high acceptance among the users. Moreover, the system needs to work very robustly in individual home environments. The fall detection system is part of an extensive real-life Ambient Assisted Living (AAL) concept with many other extended support functions. © 2009 Springer Berlin Heidelberg.