The Smart Bathroom: UD through Integrating Physical and Digital Worlds

Authors

Jon A. Sanford and Brian Jones

Session

P3. Design for housing

Date and Time

2014-06-16, 12:00 - 13:45

Room

MA 10
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Short paper

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Poster presentation

Abstract

The needs and abilities of people with disabilities are diverse. Yet, even when they have supportive devices to compensate for functional limitations, those features are fixed and are only able to support some abilities some of the time. The purpose of this project is to develop a smart bathroom environment capable of assessing an individual’s abilities at any point in time and spontaneously adjusting supportive environmental features to accommodate those abilities. Specifically, the study will: 1) observe simulated toilet and shower/bathtub use in a state-of-the-art bathroom laboratory with embedded sensors and automated adjustment of fixtures and hardware; 2) develop algorithms that predict support needs; 3) integrate algorithms with the smart technologies to control the physical environment; and 4) evaluate the effectiveness of the smart bathroom system.