SensFloor® and NaviFloor®: Robotics Applications for a Large-Area Sensor System

The following chapter describes two systems, which both are perfect examples for ambient intelligence: sensor electronics, which is invisibly integrated into the floor. The first system comprises active sensors with high spatial resolution. It is able to detect people walking across the floor and recognizes peoples' location and movement behaviour. While the main application domains are Ambient Assisted Living AAL, health care, security systems and home automation, several robotics applications are possible and have been investigated already. The second system serves for localizing moving objects such as robots, wheelchairs or hospital beds by means of passive RFID tags in the floor and an active RFID reader attached to the moving object. In the following, we describe the technical details of the two systems and robotics applications, which have already been realized or are under development.

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