A simple object for elderly vitality monitoring: The smart insole

In the framework of Ambient Assisted Living solutions, it is very important to monitor the degree of vitality of elderly users in their daily activities, for example to evaluate if the user is spending too much time in a static condition, or not. In fact this could denote an anomalous trend, possibly related to cognitive or physical conditions worsening. For such a kind of monitoring to be effective, the sensor technology shall be the less intrusive as possible, and not require any specific action by the user. To this aim, the paper presents a smart insole equipped with force sensors, that is able to classify different dynamic states (sitting, walking, standing,...) and transmit related data to a supervising system. Preliminary experimental results show the feasibility of the approach, and the effectiveness of the insole in correctly detecting and classifying the user's activities.