A Bluetooth-Based Device-Free Motion Detector for a Remote Elder Care Support System

Remote elder care is important but it is difficult to keep a track of a patient´s medication. We developed a remote elder care support system that enables users to synchronize handwriting, and photos in real-time on ordinal smartphones and tablet devices. However, it remained difficult for caregivers to remotely check the timeliness of the patient´s dose. To solve this problem, we developed a motion detector based on the attenuation of Bluetooth signals, the 2.4 GHz band, by water. The advantage of our method is that it does not require the equipment of any devices to detect care receivers is unnecessary. We experimented the attenuation of Bluetooth signals by human body and concluded that Bluetooth can be used for a motion detector.