Fraunhofer IESE leading European Assisted Living Consortium
In the context of the project Emergency Monitoring and Prevention (EMERGE) funded by the European Union, the Fraunhofer Institute for Experimental Software Engineering IESE together with other European partners is developing approaches and solutions to extend the time that elderly people can live a self-determined life in their own homes. The project started on 01 February 2007 and has a duration of 33 months.
Fraunhofer IESE is the main coordinator of EMERGE. As an applied research institute, it contributes its competencies in the area of assisted living for elderly people from other software and systems development projects. The institute's Assisted Living Lab as a realistic test environment will play an important role in testing and integrating prototype solutions. In addition, field tests are planned in nursing homes and assisted living institutions in Germany and Greece in order to collect practical experiences.
As partners of Fraunhofer IESE, eight other research institutions and industrial companies from Germany (Westpfalz-Klinikum GmbH, Kaiserslautern; Siemens AG; Microsoft European Innovation Center), Switzerland (Art of Technology), Austria (Medical University of Graz), Greece (NCSR "Demokritos", e-ISOTIS), and Hungary (Bay Zoltan Foundation) are participating in EMERGE. Their contributions will include technical developments as well as holistic approaches for health assistance for the elderly.
The goal of the project is to recognize emergency situations at home with the help of ambient and unobtrusive technology, and to provide adequate assistance, if needed. In addition to technical solutions, models for complete systems will be developed, which include the personal environment as well as recorded sensor data, and which can be custom-tailored to the needs of an individual.
The project will be funded with 2.45 million euros for 33 months in the context of the Sixth Research Framework Program of the European Union (grant number IST-2005-2.6.2 045056). The project partners will contribute a total of 1.5 million euros.
The Fraunhofer Institute for Experimental Software Engineering IESE
Fraunhofer IESE in Kaiserslautern currently has 200 employees who perform research in the areas of software development, software quality management, and software competence management. Together with its sister institute in the USA, Fraunhofer IESE offers processes, methods, and techniques for developing software-based systems according to engineering-style principles. In doing so, it follows an empirical approach: Through proven, innovative solutions, products based on software can be brought to the market with a measurably higher degree of efficiency.
The customers of Fraunhofer IESE come from domains where products are dominated by software: automotive and transportation systems, telecommunications, telematics and service providers, medical systems, as well as information systems and applications in the public sector. The institute provides support to companies of any size - from international corporations to small and medium-sized enterprises. The public sector also plays an important role as a project partner.
Fraunhofer IESE, which was founded in 1996, is directed by Prof. Dieter Rombach and Prof. Peter Liggesmeyer. It is one of 58 institutes of the Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft, which, as the largest applied research organization in Europe, contributes to national and international competitiveness.
