Status NOT active project
DISI role Partner
Project type Research Project
Dimension National
Acquisition date 2008-04-15
Start date 2008-10-01
End date 2011-10-01
SAP code 40101462

Project astract

Thanks to progresses in medicine and improved quality of life, European population is becoming
increasingly older, with a life expectancy approaching 80 years. This demographic trend is having
enormous economic and social implications in a number of areas (e.g. welfare, healthcare systems, social
assistance), and there is a market need for products and services able to enhance the quality of life of
elderly, and to mitigate the social impact of ageing population.
Technological and socio-economic innovation plays a major role in this context. As far as ICT is concerned, Ambient Intelligence (AmI) is one of the most promising technologies. AmI is commonly
referred to as the capability of acquiring a complete knowledge about a monitored environment, and
reacting to events through automatic functions and advanced user interaction. AmI has been recognized
by the IST Advisory Group of the EU Commission as a key to foster European competition, and is being
considered one of the crucial technologies to develop Ambient Assisted Living (AAL) applications, helping
impaired and elderly to achieve a higher quality of life, while preserving independency, privacy, and
security.
ACube will act in this framework, by conceiving a highly-developed smart environment to be deployed in
nursing homes as a support to medical and assistance staff. The sophisticated features of the envisaged
system will have a major impact on quality of care, quality of life of the assisted, as well as working
conditions of caregivers.
Besides the evident societal value, the selected scenario presents substantial scientific and technical
challenges. Furthermore, it is a highly demanding testbed to develop robust and efficient solutions to be
readily exported to different application domains, such as the intelligent monitoring and surveillance of
public spaces (museums, schools, stations).
The research in ACube will be organized into three complementary streams: sensing, processing, and
intelligence. The sensing architecture will be based on the paradigm of Distributed Sensor Networks
(DSN). DSNs are auto-configuring networks of wireless nodes with sensing, processing, and
communication capabilities, where the nodes cooperate to monitor a given environment. Solutions will be
studied to achieve a highly reliable DSN at very low cost and intrusiveness.
Processing concerns the development of advanced algorithms to recognize events, situations, activities,
behaviours in complex multi-person scenarios. The objective is to enable the smart environment to
understand who is doing what, where, when and how. This knowledge allows the system intelligence
taking decisions (e.g. rising alarms). Processing includes adaptation capabilities, to fit different
environments and users. The project aims at overcoming the severe limitations of current methodologies,
specially related to multiple users, complex environments/scenarios, extended/heterogeneous sensorial
systems.
System intelligence will concern the symbolic reasoning required to maintain a consistent representation
of the observed environment, monitor changes, discriminate among ambiguous scenarios, operate
decisions. Furthermore, it will provide an autonomic optimization of the system (self-configuration,
adaptation), achieved through sub-symbolic techniques.
The major technical outcome of the project is an integrated, layered architecture for intelligent monitoring,
able to efficiently accommodate and manage a wide range of sensors, and to combine the acquired data
into high-level perception, in a highly configurable and autonomous manner. To demonstrate the
real-world viability of the proposed technologies, ACube will deliver two pilot sites, located in the premises
of public institutions for assisted living (a daycare center for Alzheimer desease, located in Trento,
selected with the involvement of the Social Services units of the PAT, and a rehabilitation center owned
by FDG, located in Milan).

Keywords Ambient Intelligence; Wireless DSN; UWB, Audio/Video; Data Fusion; Model-based Reasoning
Fundings 2696800€

Project astract

The ACube Project involves 5 of the 13 RPs present in the Department:
Multimedia Signal Processing and Understanding (Prof. De Natale): it covers aspects related to Multimedia
communications and networking, signal processing and analysis, data classification and recognition, data security,
applications and interfaces. Within ACube it will take care of the automatic learning and understanding of human
behaviours for automatic alarm generation, and will contribute to the security and privacy tasks.
Wireless Communications (leader: Prof. Andrea Massa): it covers aspects related to Smart wireless devices, Wireless
networks (ad-hoc, mesh, ...), planning and optimization, Wireless transmission systems, Inverse problems, EMC and
testing. Within ACube it will take care of the physical layer of the Wireless Sensor Network, as well as the EM sensing
using advanced wireless technologies such as UWB.
Embedded Electronics and Computing Systems (leader: Prof. Dario Petri): it covers aspects related to Embedded
systems, Wireless Sensor Networks, System design methodologies, Real-time operating systems. Within ACube it will
take care of the architecture of WSN nodes and of the relevant sensing component. Furthermore, it will consider aspects
related to the software embedded in the processing part of the nodes (Prof. Palopoli).
Machine Learning and Intelligent Optimization (leader: Dr. Mauro Brunato): it covers aspects related to Machine
learning, Neural networks, Experimental algorithmics, Intelligent optimization. Within ACube it will take care of the
autonomic capabilities of the system, i.e., its capability to self adapt and optimize the performances with respect to given
parameters and constraints.
Distributed Systems (leader: Prof. Gianpietro Picco): it covers aspects related to middleware, application-level protocols,
distributed algorithms, security and privacy, service-oriented architectures. Within ACube it will take care of the aspects
related to the middleware between the WSN and the intelligent components of the system.
DISI will also consider the market analysis and the exploitation of the research, subcontracting these activities to the
Assisted Living Consortium (ALC). ALC is a consortium of five industrial companies (Argentea SpA, GPI SpA, Eth Lab Srl,
Nexis Srl, Spid Srl), working in the field of computer science and telecommunication technologies, e-helth, social
assistance, electronics and domotics, call-centers and remote assistance. The main goal is to develop integrated systems
to provide assistance to elderly and weakest citizens.

Keywords Ambient Intelligence; Wireless DSN; UWB, Audio/Video; Data Fusion; Model-based Reasoning
Fundings 788191€
Manager Francesco De Natale