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Such technologies are strongly sustained by competences
and skills in the field of Instrumentation and Measurement,
with specific regards to sensors and instrumentation, measurement methodologies and assessment of both measurement systems
and assistive strategies.
Many examples of assistive devices using sensor technology are available in the literature, including solutions already
discussed in previous sections [8], [9], [11]-[18]. It is worth
noticing that some of these systems are implemented in the
form of autonomous architectures, which include the sensing
shield, a power or energy harvesting device [19], [20], as well
as signal processing and data transmission units.
Researchers are dedicating great efforts to develop advanced
measurement methodologies that address several assistive tasks,
with specific regards to:
◗◗ indoor localization, which is a real need to support endusers by exploiting indoor environments [17]. To such aim,
as an example, advanced trilateration paradigms have
been developed, which use ultrasound optical sensors,
as well as Received Signal Strength (RSS) based systems.
◗◗ smart user status monitoring, to properly estimate
user conditions by exploiting multi-sensor data-fusion
approaches.
◗◗ monitoring user-environment interaction, which is strategic to assess user habits and ADLs, such as cooking,
eating, drinking, sitting, sleeping, etc. [14]. This task
also allows an approach to be implemented to notify
end-users of the presence of services available in the environment [17].
◗◗ monitoring user-environment contextualization, to
provide appropriate support to the user that takes into
account both his/her status as well as the environmental
conditions [17].
◗◗ fall and postural instability classification, in order to
produce reliable information useful to caregivers [11].
The assessment of AT devices both in terms of technical performances and effectiveness in performing supporting tasks is
a crucial step towards the realization of effective assistive solutions. To such aim, dedicated approaches are required which
exploit well-designed measurement surveys and the definition of performance indexes. While the technical assessment is
usually the responsibility of technical staff and implemented
during the development phase, the system effectiveness
assessment must be conducted by experimental surveys involving end-users.
In the following section, the experience of the NATIFLife
project will be presented [20], with a brief description of its
main objectives and current achievements.

The NATIFLife Project: "A Network
of Assistive Technology for an
Independent and Functional Life"
The Network of Assistive Technology for an Independent
and Functional Life (NATIFLife) project [21] is funded by the
INTERREG V-A Italy Malta Cooperation Programme and involves the Universities of Catania and Malta, and several
June 2020

public entities and enterprises located both in Sicily and Malta
[22]. The Project aims to provide effective technological solutions to the needs for independence and autonomy of elderly
and people with impairments by joint, cross-border action
between research, industrial, institutional and social stakeholders, through the implementation of networking activities
that aim to disseminate the knowledge of Assistive Technologies and their applications.
One of the main outputs claimed by the project is the realization of two Pilot Demo Sites (PDS), located in Catania
and Malta, where both standard domotics and Assistive Technology developed through innovative research activities are
integrated into the NATIFLife Platform. These "Living Labs"
are playing a fundamental role by enabling the assessment and
demonstration of novel assistive technologies to end-users
and by allowing exchange of ideas, information, needs, solutions and best practices between stakeholders.
Fig. 1 shows some views of the Italian PDS realized during the project along with some technologies installed for the
monitoring of users' habits and user-environment interaction.
In particular, Fig. 1a-Fig. 1c show the power measurement
system to control the use of an electric cooker and a coffee machine and wireless switches to monitor the use of the cupboard
and refrigerator. Fig. 1d-Fig. 1h show the power meter used
to monitor the use of the television, the Wi-Fi indoor air quality monitoring station and the Wi-Fi switches that have been
installed in all of the rooms of the apartment for light control.

The NATIFLife Architecture
A block diagram schematization of the NATIFLife architecture
is shown in Fig. 2 [23]. The NATIFLife platform of Assistive
Technology consists of the following main blocks:
◗◗ the NATIFLife Application, resident on the Cloud, in
charge of super visioning the operation of the whole
system, storing the data provided by the sensors installed
in the monitored environment or worn by the user,
performing advanced data mining, and providing feedback to end-users and alerts to caregivers.
◗◗ A local server managing the sensor/actuators network
and acting as a gateway to the remote NATIFLife Platform. The local server is in charge of monitoring the data
provided by the network, collecting useful information
and updating the remote database stored on the cloud
platform in order to have a replica of the local database.
◗◗ A Body Area Sensor Network (BASN) that consists of the
devices worn by the user: a smartwatch, a fall detector
and an RFID reader. Such devices send data to a smartphone running a dedicated App.
◗◗ The user App which provides a suitable Graphical User
Interface (GUI) designed specifically for the elders in
order to be simple and intuitive. It enables the user to
manage some domotic functionalities and provides also a
panic button in case of need.
◗◗ An environmental sensor/actuator network to gain information on user habits, user activity, user-environment
interaction, and user-environment contextualization.

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