Standardisation for Mobility-Related Assisted Living Solutions: From Problem Analysis to a Generic Mobility Model

DKE, the German Commission for Electrical, Electronic & Information Technologies, established an AAL (ambient assisted living) standardisation roadmap and a mobility group working on a standardisation document for DIN and IEC committees. Problems in mobility support, i.e. changing body positions and locomotion, are, among others, (a) individual need changes on different time scales, (b) AAL usage as resource of both increase and decrease in activity and (c) barriers between indoor and outdoor mobility. Experts from science, technology and industry (human movement, transportation, telecommunication, computing, electrical engineering) developed (1) a common theoretical base, using existing European projects in the field of AAL, DIN ISO standards, (2) user stories on different target groups and mobility devices, (3) example use cases for the UCMR (Use Case Management Repository), (4) a generic mobility model using UML (unified modeling language). The resulting model combines action theory (situation with person, task and environment) and the resource-based view (internal and external resources) in order to distinguish mobility as room for action. Thus, standardising mobility-related AAL means to assess resources the product will offer to but also demand from the user. This holds especially when different products are combined in mobility chains.