Activity recognition in the home using simple and ubiquitous sensors

In this work, a system for recognizing activities in the home setting using a set of small and simple state-change sensors is introduced. The sensors are designed to be "tape on and forget" devices that can be quickly and ubiquitously installed in home environments. The proposed sensing system presents an alternative to sensors that are sometimes perceived as invasive, such as cameras and microphones. Unlike prior work, the system has been deployed in multiple residential environments with non-researcher occupants. Preliminary results on a small dataset show that it is possible to recognize activities of interest to medical professionals such as toileting, bathing, and grooming with detection accuracies ranging from 25% to 89% depending on the evaluation criteria used (1).