A Realization of Home-based Elder Support System
Lei Wei
Dept. of Mechanical and Electrical Engineering
Jinan Engineering Vocational Technical College
Jinan, 250200, China
wlawei@163.com
Abstract—There is an increase in the number of elderly people
living alone, whose children make living in other cities or even other
countries. Once they are ill or in an accident, they can only depend
on staff of nursing care centers, instead of their children. Therefore,
a system which help the elderly to live in their apartment alone is
needed. Through the investigation of the elderly living in the
community, we developed a home-based elder support system based
on the IOT. The designed Home-based elder support system provides
information and data to the staff in nursing home, therefore
enabling the staff to help those elderly people in need.
Keywords—Home pension; Home-based care; Elder support
system
I. HOME-BASED ELDER SUPPORT SYSTEM
The increasingly accelerated age in China has brought a
severe challenge[1]. China is gradually entering the elder
society, while the empty-nest phenomenon caused by the “one
child policy” is of increasingly significance[2]. Chinese
traditional concept is "being cared by children". Though losed
self-care ability with aging, the elderly people depend on their
children's support and care. But nowadays the children who
make a living in a different city and even in foreign countries are
common. even living with their parents, to take care of all elders
all the time is also a great pressure of these young people[3][4].
The latest demographic data show that Chinese elderly
population aged 65 and above has reached 140 million by 2015,
accounting for 10.5% of the country's total population[5].There
are not enough nursing care centers in China. The beds in these
centers cannot catch up with the demand, and not to mention the
cost of pension is also very expensive. Also, the elderly who
likes to be cared in nursing home are few. There is an urgent
need for a mechanism for home caring[6].
Nursing homes may be popular in the future, but at present
the best solution in china is that the elderly live in their apartment
and call for help of the service personnel when they need. In
view of the above, home-based elder support system provides a
solution to the above description. It sets up a bridge between the
elderly and the nursing home. Information about the elderly is
sent to the nursing home, service personnel in nursing home
provide professional services. It is mainly suitable for the family
with Alzheimer's patients, with the elderly in limited range of
movement and been taken care of by their families. The elderly
of this family need both professional services and long-term
living in their home[7].
Home-based elder support system can be distributed in two
areas: generally, the nursing home management established in
978-1-5386-3524-7/17/$31.00 ©2017 IEEE
pension service center is mainly for data analysis, instant
message, judgment and customer service, etc, with real-time,
high-speed network connection. The client in pension family is
for user data collection, emergency call for help and regular
reminder.
Home-based elder support system establishes the elderly
health model by analyzing the life data of the elderly family. The
pension center makes timely prompts, and send service staff to
the elderly family to chat and treat with elder.
Home-based elder support system is mainly used to assist the
pension center to judge the health status of the elderly and to
provide the necessary assistance to the elderly in the pension
family, to a certain extent, to avoid the possibility of long-term
unattended elderly people in the accident, but not as a judge and
evidence of the situation.
II. THE COMPOSITION OF THE SYSTEM
The home-based elder support system consists of the client,
the cloud and the management system. The cloud can be
purchased from ISP (Internet Service Provider), or be built by
clients themselves. If the server is a self-built server, it is usually
placed in the same situation as the management side. As shown
in the figure 1, the client collects the elder family data and
uploads them to the cloud. The management system gets the
cloud platform data, then analyzes and make decisions, and then
gives the service personnel information.

Fig. 1. System composition
The components are as follows:
A. The client
The client which consists of the host and the functional
modules is placed in the elder’s family. It is mainly used to
collect the data of the elderly’s family and upload the data to the
cloud platform for the analysis and decision-making of the
service center. The client is composed of a client host, a key for
help module, a position sensor module, a vibration sensor
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module, an electric meter module, a water meter module, a door
status module and a voice reminder module. The block diagram
is shown in the figure 2:
Fig. 2. Client block diagram
The host of the client is used to collect the data of each
functional module, and then the data is processed and uploaded
to the database of the cloud according to the specified format.
The host is based on the Cortex-M3 core STM32F407 chip, and
STM32F407 is designed for the IOT (Internet of Things), the
chip has a network controller, The LWIP protocol , which can
achieve TCP communication, data upload and download, may
be embeded. STM32F407 is compatible with a variety of
interfaces to facilitate communication with other devices, the
design, the host mainly through the RS485 byte data
communication. At the same time, STM32F407 has up to 140 I
/ O interface, the switch function module can be directly through
the I / O interface to achieve data input and output[8]. Host in the
elder home position is not strictly required, usually with the
functional modules connected to the premise of convenience, to
ensure safety and beauty can be.
Key for help module (S): there is a button in elder’s family.
When the button is pressed, it mean that the elder need help.
The button is designed in mushroom head, so that in an
emergency, the elderly can call for help as soon as possible. A
key to call the host to send the switch signal, directly connected
to the MCU IO interface, in the highest priority, the design
ensure the help signal can be sent as soon as possible. When the
host receive the help signal, it will immediately send data to the
management side.
Position sensor module (P): The position sensor module
consists of pyroelectric infrared sensor, sending the switch
signal to the host, and it is directly connected to the MCU I/O
interface. The position sensor module is distributed in the
bedroom, living room, toilet and kitchen, and is installed as far
as possible in the middle of the top of the room so as to cover
the wider area as much as possible. Location sensor module
collects the data of elderly’s moving, and upload the data to the
management side. Massive data will form the elderly daily life
database, it helps the system to make an accurate decision. At
the same time, in determining the circumstances of the elderly at
home, to determine whether the elderly still have the ability to
act.
Vibration sensor module (V): vibration sensor module is
made of vibration sensor, it can directly send analog data
through the measurement line to the MCU AD interface.
Vibration sensor module is mainly distributed in the bedroom,
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mainly to judge whether elder fall when the elder leaves bed to
toilet or other room in the night and to judge whether the elder
stand again themselves after the fall. if not, it means that the
elder need to help. The system will send a message to the service
personnel or their children.
Electric meter module (E): The electrical meter module can
be installed in two forms. One is to install the transform module
at the home. The transform module converts the electricity
consumption to standard data and sends the standard data to the
host via RS485. The second is to install the dedicated intelligent
Meter, it has RS485 interface to send electricity to the MCU
data. Use the electrical meter module to collect the electricity
consumption of the elder family to help the system determine
whether the elder’s life is regularly.
Water meter module (W): The water meter module installed
in the pension family is used to collect the water consumption
and send the standard data to the host via RS485. The water
meter module is installed in the main water inlet of the kitchen.
By analyzing the data of the elder’s family, the system give some
advices like the electric meter module.
Door status module (D): The door status module is usually
installed in door. It may be smart or intelligently, because the
system judge whether the elder is in home when the position
sensor module has no data or the electrical meter module and the
water meter module is irregularly. The door status module
connect to the host by IO port. From 7:00 AM to 20:00 PM, if
the door is locked and the door lock sensor detects the elderly
through the home door, it can basically determine that the elderly
is out.
Voice reminder module (P): voice reminder module is made
of voice player chips. The voice stored in SD cards is played
being controlled by RS485.The content in SD card and the time
to play the voice are changed by RS485 too. If the reminder did
not get timely response, it will once again remind the elderly.
Voice reminder module is mainly used for medication reminder,
but it can also be used according to the actual need of the elderly.
All kinds of pension household units should be based on the
actual situation of the layout of the functional modules in order
to achieve the best results. As shown in the figure 3 for the two
bedrooms and one living room apartment layout of the
functional modules, only as a reference, the specific placement
should be based on the characteristics of the apartment and the
elderly living habits to be placed[9][10].
 LH = (D1, D2, P1, P2, P3, P4, P5) (1)
where D1 is for the door lock, D2 is for the door position
sensor module, Pn (n=1,2,3,4,5) is for the room location sensor
module.
Collecting data for one minute, the following three cases can
determine whether the elderly are at home:
ͳ ͳ Ͳ Ͳ Ͳ Ͳ Ͳ
‫ېͲ Ͳ Ͳ Ͳ Ͳ Ͳ ͳۍ‬
‫ێ‬ ‫ۑ‬
‫ۑͲ Ͳ Ͳ Ͳ Ͳ Ͳ ͳێ‬
‫ۑͲ Ͳ Ͳ Ͳ Ͳ Ͳ ͳێ‬
‫( ۑͲ Ͳ Ͳ Ͳ Ͳ Ͳ ͳێ‬2)
‫ۑͲ Ͳ Ͳ Ͳ Ͳ Ͳ ͳێ‬
‫ۑͲ Ͳ Ͳ Ͳ Ͳ Ͳ ͳ ێ‬
‫ۑͲ Ͳ Ͳ Ͳ Ͳ Ͳ ͳ ێ‬
‫ےͲ Ͳ Ͳ Ͳ Ͳ Ͳ ͳۏ‬
Ͳ ͳ Ͳ Ͳ Ͳ Ͳ Ͳ
‫ېͲ Ͳ Ͳ Ͳ Ͳ Ͳ ͳۍ‬
‫ێ‬ ‫ۑ‬
Fig. 3. The layout of the client in the pension family ‫ۑͲ Ͳ Ͳ Ͳ Ͳ Ͳ ͳێ‬
‫ۑͲ Ͳ Ͳ Ͳ Ͳ Ͳ ͳێ‬
B. The cloud ‫ۑͲ Ͳ Ͳ Ͳ Ͳ Ͳ ͳێ‬ሺ͵ሻ
The cloud can be achieved in two ways , renting the host ‫ۑͲ Ͳ Ͳ Ͳ Ͳ Ͳ ͳێ‬
‫ۑͲ Ͳ Ͳ Ͳ Ͳ Ͳ ͳ ێ‬
server and building a self-built server. Renting the host server is ‫ۑͲ Ͳ Ͳ Ͳ Ͳ Ͳ ͳ ێ‬
to put the data on the third platform, pension center can save the ‫ےͲ Ͳ Ͳ Ͳ Ͳ Ͳ ͳۏ‬
initial hardware investment, but they need to pay monthly rental
fees. Self-built server requires initial hardware investment, and Ͳ ͳ Ͳ Ͳ Ͳ Ͳ Ͳ
‫ېͲ Ͳ Ͳ Ͳ Ͳ ͳ ͳۍ‬
by the technical staff management and maintenance, once the
‫ێ‬ ‫ۑ‬
investment, the latter only pay staff salaries can be. ‫ۑͲ Ͳ Ͳ Ͳ Ͳ Ͳ ͳێ‬
C. The management ‫ۑͲ Ͳ Ͳ Ͳ Ͳ Ͳ ͳێ‬
‫ۑͲ Ͳ Ͳ Ͳ Ͳ Ͳ ͳێ‬ሺͶሻ
The nursing home management system is made up of ‫ۑͲ Ͳ Ͳ Ͳ Ͳ Ͳ ͳێ‬
hardware and management software. In the testing phase, the ‫ۑͲ Ͳ Ͳ Ͳ Ͳ Ͳ ͳ ێ‬
management system is compiled by Visual Basic. The main ‫ۑͲ Ͳ Ͳ Ͳ Ͳ Ͳ ͳ ێ‬
functions are: to read the data on the server, to process the data ‫ےͲ Ͳ Ͳ Ͳ Ͳ Ͳ ͳۏ‬
and establish the model, to analyze the data and make the B. Accidental fall rules:
decision, and to rank the necessary prompts in different colors.
Procedures are divided into three levels: hints, alerts and critical Accidental fall rules are used to determine whether the
alerts. The health of the little impact on the information, the elderly can take care of themselves after they fall accidentally in
system prompts; data anomalies, there is a health risk when the the pension family, if there should be, pension center service
warning; the elderly press a key call the key or did not detect the staff should provide the necessary help to avoid accidents. The
home but the family has no vital signs of the case given an alert. following conditions can be met when the elderly can determine
the accidental fall and can’t take care of themselves: ground
III. RULES AND ALGORITHMS vibration value exceeds the set value; after five minutes without
normal vibration value; after ten minutes without data of moving
The home-based elder support system needs to provide
to other room; the voice module prompt but the elder don’t
information to the pension center service personnel if necessary
respond timely within ten minutes.
to assist the service provider in the service center in a timely
manner. The system analyzes and makes decisions based on the C. Health risk rules:
following rules: Health risk rules are mainly used to avoid the elder family in
A. Leaving-home rules: the elderly sudden illness and no one take care of the elder for a
long time, the elderly have no ability to save themselves,
The leaving-home rules are used to determine whether the
resulting in accidents. The following means that the elderly is
elderly in the pension family, so as to infer other rules to provide
at risk: the system receive no data of the position sensor module
conditions for judging. To meet the following conditions can be
when the elderly is in home judged by leaving the rules; the
determined when the elderly have left the old family: lock
consumption of the water and the electricity remains the same
locked within 3 minutes after the door near the door; lock within
for 12 hours when the elderly is in home; There are some cases
9 minutes after the lock no person activities (to avoid locking
meet the decision of the rules, but it is not the elderly fall down,
before the night lock). The principle of the judgment from
such as the elderly sleep at noon, the wind will blow the
leaving-home rules is as follows:
windowsill pots, vibration sensor module data anomalies,

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location sensor module without the elderly data, and water
sensor module data remains the same. In order to be able to judge
more accurately, we need to learn the rules of life of the elderly
and give the probability of risk.
P(V): the probability of vibration sensor module error, no
data of position sensor module and the water data.
P (A): the probability of a healthy risk for the elderly
Then the support system can be judged[11][12]:
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ܲሺ‫ܣ‬ȁܸሻ ൌ ሺͷሻ
௉ሺ௏ሻ
The system do not have a perfect solution for the elderly for
acute diseases, such as myocardial infarction and so on.
D. Getting up rules:
The getting up rules are mainly used to determine whether
the elderly get up is normal in the morning. Usually, the elderly
sleep less, the most of the elderly get up earlier than young
people in china, so when they get up later than normal time, it
means that the old man is in poor health and they need service
from nursing homes. Service personnel should at least calling in
the elderly or visit when necessary. The system makes
judgments whether the elderly get up through the data of daily
water, electricity and position sensor module. Following means
the elderly get up late: there is no position data except in
bedroom for 60 minutes after the normal get up time; the
consumption of the water and the electricity is less; the data of
vibration module in the bedroom is much smaller. Following
means that the elderly need help: the position data from the
bedroom is none for 90minutes after the normal get up time; the
consumption of the water remains the same for 3 hours if the
elderly is in home.
IV. IMPROVEMENT AND OUTLOOK
The home-based elder support system is still in the testing
stage, and its improvement work has been ongoing. The mainly
focus of the current improvement is mainly on the improvement
of the algorithms of various rules. In function, the home-based
elder support system also has room for improvement, such as
wearing equipment into the family pension support system.
As of July 2017, the number of active users in China's
WeChat for the 823.065 million, while WeChat permit user from
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company get data using its device by WeChat interface,
therefore, use the bracelet to monitor the elderly rhythm, sleep
quality and fall Data, and through the WeChat sent to the server
or children’s WeChat, will become a focus of functional
improvement.
There are a number of domestic enterprises engaged in the
research of pension system, but the focus of each enterprise
research is slightly different, with the system of continuous
improvement, pension system must have a broad space for
development.
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