Customization of domestic environment and physical training supported by virtual reality and semantic technologies: A use-case

In the last years, many AAL applications have been developed to support elderly people in conducting a healthier and safer life in their everyday living environment. This paper describes the design of a domestic environment in which an elderly user can perform a tailored physical exercise through a virtual reality-based system, called Smart Home Simulator. The customization of the services offered to specific target users is achieved through the exploitation of ontologies, which model the users' health condition, the domestic environments, diverse comfort metrics and devices. Through the exploitation of a real use-case foreseeing a 72-year-old frail woman who has to train on a cycle-ergometer, a first prototype of the system-called Bicycle4CaRe-has been realized. It is composed of different commercial devices interacting with each other with the aim of providing the end user with a customized intervention and collecting data about environmental conditions and physiological parameters. These data are monitored in real-Time to ensure safe conditions of training and, at the end of the exercise, they are saved in report files and they are made available to caregivers and clinicians.