CN104257048B - A kind of the elderly's accessory system based on Intelligent crutch - Google Patents

Abstract

The invention discloses an elderly assistance system based on intelligent crutches, which uses crutches as a carrier and includes a hardware bottom layer, an intermediate service layer and an application layer; the system manages peripheral derivative devices based on data and functions, and manages these peripheral devices The perception and interaction capabilities of the system are encapsulated into upper-layer application-oriented services, and provide a unified service interface to the upper-layer application layer, thus shielding the heterogeneity of the hardware layer; the middle service layer of the system is highly modular and loosely coupled, which improves the system The scalability of the system supports the continuous access of new devices in the later period. The upper-layer applications develop new applications by assembling and calling these existing services to dynamically expand the functions of the system.

Description

An Elderly Assistance System Based on Intelligent Crutches

technical field

The invention belongs to the technical field of computer intelligence, and in particular relates to an assistance system for the elderly based on an intelligent crutch.

Background technique

In recent years, China's aging problem has become increasingly serious, and the arrival of aging has given birth to the rise of the elderly aids market. These elderly aids are as large as smart rehabilitation beds for the elderly, and as small as smart pill boxes that can remind medication in time. However, auxiliary devices for the elderly are often expensive, single-function, poor expandability, and the interaction method deviates from the unique physiological characteristics of the elderly, and has not been widely recognized by the market.

On the other hand, a variety of wearable devices are emerging, which have entered the commercial stage from the experimental stage, and their applications involve health, augmented reality, communication, etc. The specific devices include various smart bracelets, smart watches, smart fabrics, etc. Wait. However, limited by the limited hardware resources of these smart devices, their functions are relatively single and independent, and they cannot interact and collaborate conveniently with each other. Their powerful environment perception capabilities and interaction methods based on a certain part of the human body have not been maximized. use.

At present, there is a smart crutch product on the market that can detect people and obstacles. It includes a handle and a cane body. The electric wires of the control device and the detection device are connected, and the power supply supplies power to the alarm device, the control device and the detection device respectively. The detection device is used to detect people and obstacles; the alarm device is used to feed back the information detected by the detection device to the user; the control device receives the detection signal of the detection device and transmits it to the alarm device. This product not only has the function of a general crutch, but also detects people and obstacles around it, and informs the person on crutches through voice broadcast and vibration prompts. During the voice broadcast, it can prompt whether the object in front is a person or other obstacles. Although this product has an obstacle reminder function, the reminder function of this kind of product is single, and it does not have the functions of broadcasting voice reminder, fall alarm and navigation, etc., and its practicability is poor.

There are still some crutches such as fall alarms on the market, but most of the alarm methods are non-stop alarm sounds, and LED lights flash when alarming. In the case of walking alone, such an alarm method cannot function, and the practicability is poor. For another example, the smart crutch disclosed by the patent whose publication number is CN202069062U is to manually ask for help and call the police after the old man falls, and needs to manually press the button to dial the corresponding phone. Elderly people with inflexible hands and feet may mistakenly press the alarm button when walking normally without falling, resulting in false alarms, especially if the elderly fall or are in a coma after falling, the fall alarm cannot be realized at all.

This shows that the prior art mainly has the following defects:

(1) The degree of intelligence is poor, and a manual alarm is required.

(2) function is single, practicality is poor.

(3) The false alarm rate is high, and the elderly cannot get help from their relatives when they accidentally fall while walking alone.

Contents of the invention

Aiming at the above-mentioned technical problems existing in the prior art, the present invention provides an assistance system for the elderly based on smart crutches, which takes the smart crutches as the center, and manages peripheral derivative devices based on data and functions, and uses a unified Interfaces provide data and services to upper-layer applications, develop applications based on these data and services, and expand system functions.

An elderly assistance system based on smart crutches, using crutches as a carrier, including hardware bottom layer, intermediate service layer and application layer;

The bottom layer of the hardware includes an acceleration sensor, a GPS receiver, an ultrasonic transceiver and a wireless communication module;

The intermediate service layer specifies interfaces and encapsulation methods for hardware devices adapted to different hardware devices in the bottom layer of the hardware, and receives information provided by the hardware devices and parses and preprocesses the information to provide the application layer with corresponding services;

The application layer assembles and calls various services provided by the intermediate service layer to realize three functional applications of ultrasonic distance obstacle avoidance, one-key home navigation, and fall detection and alarm.

The intermediate service layer provides service data to the application layer through a unified interface.

The application layer includes an obstacle avoidance application unit, a navigation application unit and a fall detection application unit.

The hardware bottom layer also includes smart devices such as smart bracelets, smart watches, and smart fabrics, and these smart devices transmit information to the intermediate service layer through the wireless communication module.

The described obstacle avoidance application unit includes:

The distance estimation module, according to the ultrasonic service provided by the intermediate service layer, uses the time difference between the ultrasonic transmission signal and the echo signal reflected by the obstacle in front to calculate the distance between the obstacle in front and the crutch;

The voice early warning module judges whether the distance calculated by the distance estimation module is less than the set distance threshold, and if so, voice prompts that there is an obstacle ahead;

The vibration warning module judges whether the distance calculated by the distance estimation module is less than the set distance threshold, and if so, starts the vibration warning.

The navigation application unit includes:

The navigation route request module, according to the GPS service provided by the intermediate service layer, converts the current geographic location information and the preset home geographic location information into an http request, and sends the http request to a third party through the wireless communication module to provide navigation services cloud server, and simultaneously receive the navigation route returned by the cloud server through the wireless communication module;

The navigation calculation module compares the current geographic location information with the navigation route in real time according to the GPS service provided by the intermediate service layer;

The voice reminder module, according to the comparison result of the navigation calculation module, when the user enters the predetermined distance range of the navigation route node, the voice reminds the user of the next walking direction.

The fall detection application unit includes:

The acceleration detection module judges the posture of the crutches by analyzing the acceleration information on the three axes according to the three-axis acceleration service provided by the intermediate service layer;

The sound warning module judges whether the user has fallen according to the posture of the crutches, and if so, starts the buzzer alarm;

The wireless alarm module judges whether the user has fallen according to the posture of the crutches, and if so, activates the text message sending and receiving function, sends an alarm text message to the preset phone number, and informs the designated guardian.

The intermediate service layer and the application layer are jointly implemented on the lower computer platform with computing, storage and communication capabilities.

The system allows new hardware devices to be added to the bottom layer of the hardware. After the intermediate service layer encapsulates the new devices according to the existing mode, it provides the functions of the new devices to the application layer in the form of services. The services provided by the service layer are encapsulated to expand more functions.

The elderly assistance system of the present invention takes the intelligent crutches as the center, and at the same time manages peripheral derivative devices based on data and functions, encapsulates the perception and interaction capabilities of these peripheral devices into services for upper-layer applications, and provides unified services to the upper-layer application layer. The service interface of the system shields the heterogeneity of the hardware level; the middle service layer of the system is highly modularized and loosely coupled, which improves the scalability of the system and supports the continuous access of new devices in the later stage. Some services develop new applications to dynamically expand the functions of the system.

Description of drawings

Fig. 1 is a schematic structural diagram of the elderly assistance system of the present invention.

Fig. 2 is a schematic diagram of the access of three types of peripheral derivative devices in the present invention.

detailed description

In order to describe the present invention more specifically, the technical solutions of the present invention will be described in detail below in conjunction with the accompanying drawings and specific embodiments.

The elderly assistance system of the present invention takes the smart crutches as the center, and other peripheral derivative devices are used as extensions of the smart crutches. By providing the smart crutches with more powerful and perfect sensory perception and interaction capabilities, the functions of the system are expanded through new application development. .

In this system, peripheral devices establish connections with mobile phones through Bluetooth, Wifi, Xbee, etc. These peripheral devices can be existing smart watches, smart glasses, etc., or lower-level sensing modules, which can establish a connection with a smart crutch through a small lower-level computer such as Arduino as an intermediary.

As shown in Fig. 1, the elderly assistance system of the present invention is divided into three levels, which are the bottom layer of hardware, the middle layer of functional modules and the application layer from bottom to top. The core of the whole system runs on the Pcduino lower computer based on the embedded Linux operating system. Pcduino slave computer is an embedded experiment board. Compared with ordinary experiment boards, it has the advantages of relatively cheap price, powerful hardware performance, strong expandability, and compatibility with Arduino.

The bottom layer of hardware is the foundation of the system. We use PcduinoV2 single-chip microcomputer, which has Wifi communication function, and has RJ45 network cable interface and USB interface for system expansion. On this one-chip computer, run the embedded Linux operating system. The software level of our entire system is based on JAVA, runs on the JVM virtual machine, and adopts the OSGI development framework. The bottom layer of the hardware is mainly to configure the driver for the basic module of the smart crutch itself, and to configure the communication protocol and hardware interface for the surrounding derivative devices to facilitate its access. Here, we have developed different underlying access methods for three types of devices (as shown in Figure 2). The first category is the existing peripheral wearable devices, which often have independent communication functions, and only need to configure the addresses of both parties in the system (for wifi, xbee and other communication methods) or establish pairing between devices (for Bluetooth and other communication means), the two can establish a connection, laying a solid foundation for the intermediate functional module layer. The second type is serial communication equipment. This type of equipment only provides serial communication. We use the RS232 serial port to USB module as a bridge at the hardware level to establish the connection between the lower computer and the device. At the software level, we Use the RXTXcomm module to provide the underlying driver for serial communication. The third type is simple sensing modules, which often only provide simple TTL level communication or Analog analog signal communication, and require a series of signal processing to obtain their sensing data. For this kind of equipment, we use the Arduino single-chip microcomputer as the data processing and transmission intermediary, the equipment is directly connected to the Arduino, and the Arduino and the Pcduino are connected through a serial port, thereby indirectly establishing the communication between the equipment and the core lower computer.

The intermediate functional module layer makes full use of the modular development feature of OSGi, and encapsulates various sensing devices and interactive devices in the hardware layer into service modules according to their functions.

For the GPS positioning function, we have established a connection between the GPS receiver module and the Pcduino lower computer in the bottom layer of the hardware according to the serial communication method, and use the appropriate driver to make the communication between the two normal. In the intermediate functional module layer, the positioning information generated by the GPS receiver, that is, the information encapsulated by the NMEA-0183 protocol, we decode it at this level, and then encapsulate it with Java classes, so that the upper-layer application can directly obtain it when calling The current latitude and longitude and other available information avoid the complexity of the original information of the GPS module.

For the functions of telephone text message and GPRS network communication, they all rely on the SIM900 module, which is the same as the GPS receiver module, which is also connected by means of serial port communication. But in the intermediate functional module layer, it encapsulates a series of AT serial port commands to realize functions such as making calls, sending and receiving short messages, and surfing the Internet through GPRS communication. After functional encapsulation of the module at the current level, the upper layer application does not need to understand any underlying AT commands, but only needs to call related services to realize functions such as telephone text messages and GPRS network communication.

For various simple sensing modules, because they use simple TTL level output or Analog analog output, we use Arduino microcontroller as an intermediary. On the Arduino MCU, we wait for the data request command from the core lower computer. When the request comes, according to the request, the data information of the specified sensor perception module is obtained, preprocessed, and then sent to the Pcduino through the serial port for further processing. processing. The package here has a certain degree of versatility, and it is actually a functional package for a type of sensor perception module adapted to the Arduino microcontroller. It shields the heterogeneity of various sensing and sensing modules, and at the same time, it maximizes the source of basic equipment for this system with the help of the powerful sensing capabilities under the current Arduino open source platform.

For various wearable devices, wireless direct connection is generally used to establish communication. Since these wearable devices have certain program functions, they can use the client-server interaction method to encapsulate the wearable device's environmental awareness and unique interaction capabilities for upper-layer applications to call. For example, for an Android smart watch, a simple gesture recognition program can be deployed on the watch. After the gesture is recognized, the relevant commands will be sent back to the Pcduino lower computer through wireless and other communication methods, thus providing a more powerful interaction method for the upper layer application.

In the intermediate functional module layer, all functions are packaged and presented as services. In this embodiment, we use the service registration and consumption mechanism that comes with the OSGI framework. After the system is started, it will scan the preset function list, encapsulate the modules that have been connected at the bottom of the hardware, and then perform service and automatic registration for consumption by upper-layer applications. All modules are presented in the form of Bundle in the OSGi framework.

In the application layer, the application can realize the function of the application by assembling various services provided by the intermediate functional module layer, so as to achieve the purpose of expanding the function of the smart crutch. These applications are also presented in the form of bundles. In this embodiment, we provide three preset functions of the intelligent crutches: ultrasonic distance obstacle avoidance, one-key home navigation and fall detection.

Ultrasonic distance obstacle avoidance uses an ultrasonic transmitter and an ultrasonic receiver. After the user turns on the ultrasonic distance obstacle avoidance function, the ultrasonic module transmitter installed on the smart crutch emits ultrasonic waves forward and starts timing. The ultrasonic module receiving device installed at the same position as the transmitting device receives the echo of the ultrasonic wave in real time after the timing starts, and stops timing once the echo is received. Calculate the time difference between sending and receiving ultrasonic waves, combined with the propagation speed of ultrasonic waves in the air, calculate the distance between the obstacle object and the crutch. The calculation formula is: time difference * propagation speed of ultrasonic wave in air/2. Determine whether the calculated distance is less than the warning threshold. If it is less, call the sound feedback service to remind the user of obstacles through an external audio device or earphone, call the vibration feedback service, and send a reminder to the user through the vibration on the top of the crutch.

One-key home navigation uses GPS receiver module and GPRS communication module. Before using this function, the user needs to preset the specific location of the family. Presets can be set using a smartphone to access the lower computer wirelessly. The connection method can be Bluetooth. Here a program needs to be developed on the smartphone for presets. After the user presses the corresponding function key, the navigation starts. The GPS receiver module obtains the current location of the user. The application assembles the current location and the home location into an http service request, sends it to the cloud through the GPRS communication module, and calls the third-party navigation interface to obtain the navigation route. In this implementation, we use Baidu's navigation API, which returns a JSON-based Navigation path result. We need to reorganize the results. During the navigation process, as people walk, the application obtains the GPS positioning position in real time, and compares it with the navigation route information. When entering a route node (such as a turn at an intersection, etc.) within a certain distance, through sound and vibration feedback, it will prompt the next step of walking, such as turning left and turning right, and inform the distance of the next section. until reaching the destination.

The fall detection function mainly uses the three-axis acceleration module. The three-axis acceleration module acquires the posture information of the three axes based on the smart crutch in real time, and processes it to judge the posture of the smart crutch. Here, it is necessary to pre-determine the reference data of the three axes of the triaxial acceleration. For example, when the Z-axis is used as the reference system with the right-handed reference system facing away from the earth, the reference of the Z-axis is -9.8g, and the references of the X-axis and Y-axis are equal to -9.8g. is 0. Combined with the historical data of posture information, if the crutches fall, judge the way the crutches fell, and if the fall may be caused by an elderly person, call the buzzer alarm service to send an alarm to passers-by. Here it can be considered that when there is a large absolute value on the X-axis or Y-axis, and the value on the Z-axis tends to 0g, and the state has not recovered for a certain period of time, it can be determined that a fall may have occurred.

Claims (1)

1. An elderly assistance system based on intelligent crutches, using crutches as a carrier, is characterized in that: it includes a hardware bottom layer, an intermediate service layer and an application layer; The bottom layer of the hardware includes an acceleration sensor, a GPS receiver, an ultrasonic transceiver and a wireless communication module; the bottom layer of the hardware also includes smart bracelets, smart watches and smart fabrics, and these smart devices transmit information to the intermediate service layer through the wireless communication module; The intermediate service layer specifies interfaces and encapsulation methods for hardware devices adapted to different hardware devices in the bottom layer of the hardware, and receives information provided by the hardware devices and parses and preprocesses the information to provide the application layer with corresponding services; The application layer assembles and calls various services provided by the intermediate service layer to realize the three functional applications of ultrasonic distance obstacle avoidance, one-key home navigation and fall detection and alarm; The intermediate service layer provides service data to the application layer with a unified interface, and the application layer includes an obstacle avoidance application unit, a navigation application unit and a fall detection application unit; the intermediate service layer and the application layer share a common Realized on the lower computer platform with computing, storage and communication capabilities; The described obstacle avoidance application unit includes: The distance estimation module, according to the ultrasonic service provided by the intermediate service layer, uses the time difference between the ultrasonic transmission signal and the echo signal reflected by the obstacle in front to calculate the distance between the obstacle in front and the crutch; The voice early warning module judges whether the distance calculated by the distance estimation module is less than the set distance threshold, and if so, voice prompts that there is an obstacle ahead; The vibration early warning module judges whether the distance calculated by the distance estimation module is less than the set distance threshold, and if so, starts the vibration early warning; The navigation application unit includes: The navigation route request module, according to the GPS service provided by the intermediate service layer, converts the current geographic location information and the preset home geographic location information into an http request, and sends the http request to a third party providing navigation services through the GPRS module The cloud server receives the navigation route returned by the cloud server through the GPRS module; The navigation calculation module compares the current geographic location information with the navigation route in real time according to the GPS service provided by the intermediate service layer; The voice reminder module, according to the comparison result of the navigation calculation module, when the user enters the predetermined distance range of the navigation route node, the voice reminds the user of the next walking direction; The fall detection application unit includes: The acceleration detection module judges the posture of the crutches by analyzing the acceleration information on the three axes according to the three-axis acceleration service provided by the intermediate service layer; The sound warning module judges whether the user has fallen according to the posture of the crutches, and if so, starts the buzzer alarm; The wireless alarm module judges whether the user has fallen according to the posture of the crutches, and if so, activates the text message sending and receiving function, sends an alarm text message to the preset phone number, and informs the designated guardian.