Database for detection of acoustic events in a home environment

A major focus of GRaCE-AGE is on the active monitoring of older people living at home, to improve their wellbeing and connection to their care network. One monitoring technique, acoustic detection, is investigated in a new paper.

Acoustic sensor networks, composed of sensor nodes containing microphones, can monitor that activities of a person in their own home through the recording and analysis of sound. Recently, acoustic detection and classification of scenes and events has gained interest in the scientific community. This has led to the production of public databases to enable activity detection in a wide range of applications, but none so far suited for monitoring daily activities in the home.

Dekkers, et al. (2017) introduce a database recorded in one living home, over the period of one week, using a network of acoustic sensors distributed throughout the home. This research marks a step toward the use of acoustic detection to analyse activities in a home, which may be applied within GRaCE-AGE to allow a new method of monitoring the health of older users within the community. 

Available online: link