Aingeru: an Innovating System for Tele Assistance of Elderly People

Abstract

In this article we present the main features of Aingeru, a system that provides a new kind of tele assistance service. The purpose of developing Aingeru has been to overcome the main constraints that tele assistance services nowadays present: they are passive (they react only when the user requires it); their coverage is limited; and, they do not monitor automatically vital signs. By contrast, Aingeru, by using PDAs (Personal Digital Assistants), wireless communications and semantic web and agent technologies, provides a service with the following features: it is active (it reacts automatically in the face of anomalous situations); it can work anywhere and anytime; and, it can monitor vital signs and generate an alarm when necessary. Furthermore Aingeru permits physicians and relatives concerned with Aingeru users to consult data about them through the web. The main focus of the paper is on presenting the architecture of Aingeru and three aspects that are used in its development: agent technology, semantic web techniques and web services which constitute the pillars to obtain the new tele assistance features provided by Aingeru.