An Investigation into the Viability of a Mobile Ultrasonic Array as a Sensor Substitute in an Autonomic Intelligent Environment

In this paper an approach to ensuring fault tolerance in intelligent environments for the elderly through the provision of mobile sensor substitution in the event of the detection of anomalous static sensor behavior, is presented. Specifically this paper focuses on the monitoring of an external door in an intelligent care home environment. A mobile robot equipped with an array of ultrasonic sensors is dispatched to monitor the door state and report a change in state to a central server. For each door state there are consistent changes in the sensor readings identified in the course of the experiments carried out within this work. The use of ultrasonic sensors provides a viable substitution option that can assist a central system in deciding whether a care assistant or maintenance engineer is required to resolve the anomalous static sensor behavior.