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Tuesday, May 28, 2019

LiDAR to Monitor the Elderly

Thanks Mike

Autoblog

As you check this out, imagine if you will the market capitalization that this application ALONE could achieve for a company.

This article is making some assumptions of limitations of LiDAR that MicroVision has already dispelled.

This is an application that MicroVision has already highlighted.


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Jack Narcotta, a senior smart home analyst at Strategy Analytics, said lidar lasers were one of the more advanced solutions for elderly monitoring, but were still in the very early stages.

Even though lidar doesn't recognize faces, some consumers may be concerned about the amount of tracking and location data collected and the ability to see repeatable patterns, he said.    

***[Actually, yes it does. If you have seen the demo of MicroVision's LiDAR it not only recognizes faces, but expressions.]

In the pilot, IBM Research UK and Cera Care plan to install lidar sensors in around 10-15 volunteer households in Britain from June, and see whether they can build up a detailed picture of a care client's daily routine and home environment using IBM's machine learning software.  (This is data-gathering for Artifical intelligence.)

Their aim is to alert caregivers to any possible deterioration in a person's physical and psychological health, such as changes in gait, or emergency situations such as a fall.

Ben Maruthappu, co-founder and CEO of Cera Care, hopes the technology will help the care system become more personalized even as the demand for care outgrows the number of careworkers on the front line.

"Technology like this can help us solve that gap between demand and supply because it means we can pinpoint when a careworker needs to be in a person's home," Maruthappu told Reuters.

(Improvements in the bottom line... always good to participate in that.)

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Nicola Palmarini, IBM's top research scientist for aging and longevity, says lidar - which doesn't recognize personal characteristics such as faces, age and gender - provides precise data without people feeling like they are being watched.

He believes they will only need one lidar sensor per room, potentially making it more scalable and reducing overall care costs if people can stay at home for longer.

Still, the technology comes with a high price-tag, with 3D sensors currently costing between $800 and $1,000 each, according to Palmarini. He expects the cost to fall over time.

Aejaz Zahid, a director at assistroniX and expert on new technologies to help people age well, said one major benefit of lidar could be fall detection - a major pain point for health systems that researchers have struggled to crack with wearables.

Other firms looking at lidar's potential in the smart home include scanning technology maker Microvision that has launched a lidar sensor with a range of up to 10 metres with machine-learning capabilities.

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