Bremen Ambient Assisted Living Laboratory - BAALL
The Bremen Ambient Assisted Living Lab is an apartment suitable for the elderly and people with physical or cognitive impairments. With a size of 60 m², it comprises all necessary conditions for trial living, intended for two persons. It is situated at the Bremen site of the German Research Center for Artificial Intelligence (DFKI) in one of the labs of the research department Cyber-Physical Systems in the Cartesium building.
Seniors to be, people actively planning their future, should arrange
their living environment - in which they intend to live as long as
possible - preferably at an early stage in their life. BAALL's
look-and-feel is that of a higher class apartment; technology is
discreet, if at all visible. Our aim is to investigate, which
infrastructure for technical assistance, possibly needed in the future,
should be realised today in order to allow later step-by-step upgrading
on demand, without major construction or adaptations. Thus, residence
scenarios for various age-related physical and cognitive limitations
have to be anticipated, and possibilities for compensation through
assistance planned.
An important technical precondition, and
challenge for research, is the interoperability of all devices combined
with their standardisation. A major concern is the evaluation of the
everyday usability of AAL systems inside BAALL. For this purpose, we
cooperate with hospitals as well as user associations. In addition to
the demonstration of cooperation with our partners from research and
industry and the products developed by them, our focus is the
development of innovative aspects which distinguish BAALL from other
AAL research apartments.
* Mobility assistance through the
Bremen Intelligent Wheelchair (Xeno, Otto Bock) as well as the
Intelligent Walker is the major focus. Both the wheelchair and the
walker are upgraded with sensors and actuators to assist safe driving
(braking, automatic obstacle avoidance) as well as navigation to known
destinations.
* The improvement of interoperability and
safety of systems for environmental assistance is investigated.
Moreover, higher services for interaction with intelligent household
appliances and furniture (kitchenette, refrigerator, sliding doors,
wardrobe, bed, ...) are developed.
* Regarding all
assistants, we take natural interaction with the users very seriously,
through special devices for compensating special limitations, but
foremost by emphasising spoken dialogue.
BAALL has been developed under the lead of Prof. Dr. Bernd Krieg-Brückner in cooperation with Universität Bremen in the EU project SHARE-it and the SFB/TR8 Spatial Cognition of the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft.