Reconfiguring Domestic Environments: A Decision Support System for Ambient Assisted Living

The increasing number of older adults in Western and Eastern countries calls for solutions dedicated to support them living autonomously. Ambient Assisted Living (AAL) provided several technological solutions to contrast ageing and its consequences, combining different technological paradigms and assistive devices to support older adults. However, AAL solutions often require users' domestic environments modifications and a careful selection of assistive devices to effectively support end users. These tasks are far from trivial and can pose a challenge for architects and designers. This work introduces a semantic-based reconfigurator to support designers and architects in reconfiguring the domestic environments for older adults who may benefit from AAL technologies. The reconfigurator acts as a Decision Support System (DSS) since it identifies the AAL solutions to be deployed (leveraging semantic representations of the devices and of the inhabitant's health condition), then it interacts with a 3D model of the inhabitant's room, enabling designers and architects to evaluate the configuration of devices, furniture, and the performance of building elements, taking into account physical environment's constraints. The proposed solution is illustrated with two use cases, each involving a different older adult with specific needs and illustrates the reasoning process.