Framework for an Intelligent Affect Aware Smart Home Environment for Elderly People

Abstract: The population of elderly people has been increasing at a rapid rate over the last few decades and their population is expected to further increase in the upcoming future. Their increasing population is associated with their increasing needs due to problems like physical disabilities, cognitive issues, weakened memory and disorganized behavior, that elderly people face with increasing age. To reduce their financial burden on the world economy and to enhance their quality of life, it is essential to develop technology-based solutions that are adaptive, assistive and intelligent in nature. Intelligent Affect Aware Systems that can not only analyze but also predict the behavior of elderly people in the context of their day to day interactions with technology in an IoT-based environment, holds immense potential for serving as a long-term solution for improving the user experience of elderly in smart homes. This work therefore proposes the framework for an Intelligent Affect Aware environment for elderly people that can not only analyze the affective components of their interactions but also predict their likely user experience even before they start engaging in any activity in the given smart home environment. This forecasting of user experience would provide scope for enhancing the same, thereby increasing the assistive and adaptive nature of such intelligent systems. To uphold the efficacy of this proposed framework for improving the quality of life of elderly people in smart homes, it has been tested on three datasets and the results are presented and discussed.