A Multimedia-Based System for Monitoring Sleepwalkers

Sleepwalking is a sleep disorder that can lead to various dangerous consequences. Although a significant amount of research has been done by the medical community for diagnosis and treatment of this disease, hardly any technological attempt has been made for preventing a sleepwalker from performing a violent or dangerous activity. In this paper, we present a multimedia-based monitoring system that uses motion and video sensors to detect the unusual activity of a sleepwalker. Motion detection triggers video cameras to capture images, which are processed by the system to identify a sleepwalker using face detection/recognition technology. The system raises multiple levels of alarms depending upon the movement of the sleepwalker in and out of the house. The test results demonstrate the effectiveness of installing such a system for monitoring sleepwalkers.