Mobile web server for elderly people monitoring

In this paper we propose a mobile system for monitoring of moving objects, namely tracking elderly people. This system aims to provide help for people with some kind of memory loss disease, namely Alzheimer's. It is capable of providing the geographic position of the person carrying the mobile equipment, both by a patient request (pressing a key to send a message) or anytime trough a webpage consult by an external authorized person. The portable device consists of a GSM/GPRS module, a GPS module, a I/O and MCU module and a web server. It also incorporates hands free voice communication capability, which allows communication with a distant person, in the event of an unexpected incident. The problem of external web server dependency is tackled by implementing an embedded web server in the mobile device. This significantly reduces the user expenses that are limited to the data communication between any authorized person and the mobile system. Additionally, we have included a tri-axial accelerometer sensor to constrain the current consumption while the device is not moving, which can also detect the failing of the patient. However, the main achievement of this work, regardless the hardware integration, is the development of a web server supported on the relatively limited computational resources available in the module. To this extent, it is not required any dedicated software to access this equipment, but a web browser.