Elderly-care monitoring sensor using stepped-FM UWB scheme

Elderly-care support is a very important issue in many developed countries because of the arrival of increasingly aging society. The increase in accidents involving the elderly becomes great concern and the requirement for monitoring their activity and state is especially increasing in care facilities. We have therefore developed a wireless monitoring sensor where a stepped-FM based ultra-wideband (UWB) scheme is employed to coexist with other existing wireless systems. This is because some interference mitigation device is required to be implemented by the UWB regulation. Our developed sensor system can take any optional spectrum hole (non-activated within a portion of the wide radio spectrum) for the UWB transmission. This paper presents the measurement results conducted in a care/nursing home.