A Bed-Fall Notification System Using Pressure and Ultrasonic Sensors

Falls are a major cause of unintentional injury and mortality in the senior population. Therefore, early fall notification can prevent any undesirable damage. This paper aims to present a mobile electronic device-based bed-fall notification using the combination of six thin-film pressure sensors and six ultrasonic sensors. The proposed system monitors movements, detects a bed-fall, and sends an alarm to caregivers. The Finite State Machine (FSM) is used to classify 3 states of movement patterns: the lying, sitting, and falling states. The Internet of Things (IoT) system is adopted to transmit the movement status to the application on an android mobile device. The proposed bed-fall classification system yielded promising results for accuracy, sensitivity, and specificity: 86.67%, 73.33%, and 100%, respectively. In future work, the proposed system can be improved by increasing the number of thin-film pressure sensors, modifying circuit, and applying machine learning models. Accreditation of the system is expected to benefit young and elderly patients in nursing homes, hospitals, and residential areas.

Keywords: android mobile device; fall; finite state machine; ınternet of things; pressure and ultrasonic sensor

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                                             E-mail: direks@g.swu.ac.th