Project description

The AAL Living Lab at HTW-Dresden is all about the question of which technologies can be used to design the living space of older people in the future in order to enable them to remain in their own homes for a long time in a self-determined manner. In detail, it is about the question of how technological innovations can be integrated into existing care and supply structures and what effects they have on the everyday life of all involved actors, i.e. residents, relatives and care providers.

In doing so, the project has three overarching, primary goals:

1. The first goal of the project is to involve residents, their relatives, and the care providers they use in a resident-centered, participatory research and development process to learn about, develop, and/or evaluate technological applications for older people living alone. The spectrum of applications ranges from commercially available technology components to novel software applications from the field of artificial intelligence. The use of such technologies sometimes results in the need to adapt established processes and routines to new circumstances.  

2. Therefore, the second goal of the project is to explore how all these systems and their capabilities can be integrated as seamlessly, cooperatively and "profitably" as possible into the daily lives of residents and into existing nursing structures and processes. This is to be implemented in the form of interdisciplinary research projects in our laboratory. Which brings us to the third major goal of the project.
3. The AAL laboratory is to be made available to other scientific groups as a research platform with its technologies and the data obtained from them. This should be possible on the one hand in the form of direct access to the installed technology, and on the other hand in the form of data requests via established scientific databases. For these and other questions, the AAL laboratory represents the ideal environment. The placement in an existing residential complex of Cultus gGmbH in Bühlau provides both constant contact with potential residents and close cooperation with and a deep look into nursing structures.

Project presentation Living Lab "SMART CO-CARE

On 22. September 2020 Prof. Böhme presented the first installations and the overall progress of the Living Lab within the housing complex Bühlau of Cultus gGmbH in the presence of numerous interested residents. Also the director of Cultus, Mr. Beine, as well as the head of the residence housing Bühlau, Mrs. Thiemann, paid attention to the statements, how your own flat can support a longer independent inhabing and which technology of the workgroup Artificial Intelligence & Cognitive Robotics is plugged and can be refined. The event, which took place in the open air in the courtyard of the Bühlau housing complex, made the residents want to temporarily "move in" to the project flat and also addressed possible fears regarding immaturity through technology or the dangers of misuse of sensitive biometric data. The optimistic residents discussed openly, but were more interested in the possibilities of care, especially fall detection and notification in such emergencies. The event in Bühlau ended with individual questions and subsequent discussions with staff from Prof. Böhme's working group.