Communication protocol for the Guardian system aimed at the protection of mistreated people

Thousands of people (mainly women) are daily mistreated, battered and abused by their ex-couples or their current couples. In this sense, electronic surveillance can be an efficient tool for helping to guarantee the safety of victims. Ambient Intelligence (AmI), based on ubiquitous computing, represents a promising approach to make technology adapt to people in order to solve the challenge of developing strategies that allow the early detection and prevention of problems in safety environments and, more specifically, the protection of people under risk situations, including cases of mistreatment or loss. This paper describes Guardian, an integral solution designed for improving the protection of mistreated and at-risk people by means of the integration of GPS, GPRS and ZigBee technologies. The basic architecture of the system, the proposed wireless devices, as well as the communication protocol used between the system and the devices are described. Furthermore, a first hardware and software prototype is depicted and tested.