Photonic sensors for non-invasive home monitoring of elders

In this paper, we present an optical fiber based architecture for non-invasive home monitoring of elder citizens. The approach is based on a network of optical fiber sensors distributed along the space/room to be monitored. The sensing mechanism is based on optical fiber Bragg grating (FBG) sensors, produced by the phase mask method and integrated within an accelerometer structure. This type of sensing solution has high sensitivity, allied with an extra resilience. Here we present the proposed architecture, the evaluation of different parameters that influence the accelerometer feedback, and the theoretical approach for indoor localization using this type of sensing mechanism. One advantage of the proposed solution is that it does not depend on wearables, which are considered burden for elders.