Developing mobile ubiquitous services for the elderly using virtual environments

The development of ubiquitous mobile services for the provision of elderly care is a difficult task due to the need to develop customised services for people with a wide range of maladies. This paper describes a method and architecture which is used to develop and simulate new customised ubiquitous mobile services for the elderly. The process first identifies the key processes that are necessary for each life situation through interviews and observations. These processes are then described in Quality Function Deployment model which is then used to develop the ubiquitous mobiles service. The developed service is then tested in a simulation environment, which combines real sensor input as well as virtually generated events in order to test the process before deployment. An architecture describing the implementation of the sensors and service on RealXtend, a collaborative network virtual environment is then presented with an example as to how real sensors are integrated into RealXtend, and how the QFD model is produced. The outcome of this is a virtual testing and validation of the ubiquitous service prior to deployment. The eventual goal is to provide a fast service prototyping environment and also to support large scale simulations.

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