Safety services in smart environments using depth cameras

Falls of elderly persons are the most common cause of serious injuries in this age group. It is important to detect the fall in a timely manner. If medical help can't be provided immediately a deterioration of the patient's state may occur. In order to tackle this challenge, we want to propose two combined safety services that can utilize the same sensor to prevent and detect falls. The Dangerous Object Adviser detects small obstacles located on the floor and warns the user about the stumbling hazard when the user walks in their direction. The Fall Detection Service detects a fall and informs caregivers. This enables the caregivers to provide medical care in time. Both services are implemented by using the Microsoft Kinect, with the obstacles extracted from the depth image and the usage of skeleton tracking gives to provide the necessary information on the user position and pose.