Journals Proceedings

Abstract

The purpose of this paper, is to provide a solution to the issue of dependence for elderly people in the context of an ageing population phenomenon. In rural areas with a low population density, isolation has negative impacts on everyday life. In France, the ageing population raises the fear of a serious increase in the number of persons suffering from disabilities and in need of assistance. In Corsica, population ageing is substantially increasing. Given this critical context we are trying to develop a system of connected objects called SmartAngels to support proximity-based solidarity. It consists of a meshed network of autonomous ZigBee microcontrollers, in which various actors can exchange information by means of an accurate interface design. Its main task is to support both proximity-based solidarity and social relationships in rural environments. Moreover, the SmartAngels device grid ensures optimal neighbourhood solidarity in case of a serious problem by creating a community of actors. First aid can be provided by neighbouring people alerted by the system, thus allowing to efficiently handle the distance to civil protection assistance, and to overcome technical limits in areas where telecommunication networks are either nderdeveloped or saturated. In this work, we present a SmartAngels system prototype allowing to handle the social link and launch alerts in rural environments with a low density of population