Ambient assisted living communications [Guest Editorial]

Nowadays taking care of elderly people and the disabled has become a very important but challenging task. Although the elderly have wisdom and wealth gathered from their life experiences, they require special assistance, higher health insurance costs, and even constant monitoring. By utilizing information process and communications technology, ambient assisted living (AAL) communications open up a new way to address such needs for the aged and the sick. Specifically, AAL uses ambient technologies, including data sensing, processing, transmission, and artificial intelligence, to enable new products, services, and processes that help to provide safe, healthy lives for the aged and disabled. It also supports improved social connections and accessibility to the external world. With the growth of AAL environment, the accessibility gets more challenging for the complex data structure.