This book covers the results of a study concerning systems for
healthcare-oriented monitoring of elderly persons. It is focused on the
methods for processing data from impulse-radar sensors and depth
sensors, aimed at localisation of monitored persons and estimation of
selected quantities informative from the healthcare point of view. It
includes mathematical descriptions of the considered methods, as well as
the corresponding algorithms and the results of their testing in a
real-world context. Moreover, it explains the motivations for developing
healthcare-oriented monitoring systems and specifies the real-world
needs which may be addressed by such systems.
The healthcare systems, all over the world, are confronted with
challenges implied by the ageing of population and the lack of adequate
recruitment of healthcare professionals. Those challenges can be met by
developing new technologies aimed at improving the quality of life of
elderly people and at increasing the efficiency of public health
management. Monitoring systems may contribute to this strategy by
providing information on the evolving health status of
independently-living elderly persons, enabling healthcare personnel to
quickly react to dangerous events. Although these facts are generally
acknowledged, such systems are not yet being commonly used in healthcare
facilities and households. This may be explained by the difficulties
related to the development of technological solutions which can be both
acceptable for monitored persons and capable of providing healthcare
personnel with useful information. The impulse-radar sensors and depth
sensors, considered in this book, have a potential for overcoming those
difficulties since they are not cumbersome for the monitored persons -
if compared to wearable sensors - and do not violate the monitored
person's privacy - if compared to video cameras.
Since for safety reasons the level of power, emitted by the radar
sensors, must be ultra-low, the task of detection and processing of
signals is a research challenge which requires more sophisticated
methods than those developed for other radar applications. This book
contains descriptions of new Bayesian methods, applicable for the
localisation of persons by means of impulse-radar sensors, and an
exhaustive review of previously published ones. Furthermore, the methods
for denoising, regularised numerical differentiation and fusion of data
from impulse-radar sensors and depth sensors are systematically reviewed
in this book. On top of that, the results of experiments aimed at
comparing the performance of various data-processing methods, which may
serve as guidelines for related future projects, are presented.
