News
Oct 2025: ALONE Alejandro García successfully submitted and presented his PhD thesis
Oct 2025: ALONE Laura de Diego successfully submitted and presented her PhD thesis
Aug 2025: ALONE closing
Jul 2025: ALONE researchers María C. Pérez, Laura de Diego, Alejandro García and Álvaro Hernández attended SAAEI 2025 in Aranjuez
Jul 2025: ALONE Dian Tian successfully submitted and presented his PhD thesis
Jun 2025: ALONE Last semester coordination meeting
Nov 2024: ALONE researcher Álvaro Hernández attended DCIS 2024 in Catania
Jul 2024: ALONE researcher Laura de Diego attended COINS 2024 in London
Jul 2024: ALONE researchers María C. Pérez, Laura de Diego, Alejandro García and Álvaro Hernández attended SAAEI 2024 in Granada
Jun 2024: ALONE Third semester coordination meeting
Jun 2024: ALONE researcher Alejandro García attended MeMeA 2024 in Eindhoven
May 2024: ALONE researchers Víctor Navarro and Álvaro Hernández attended I2MTC 2024 in Glasgow
Apr 2024: ALONE researcher Laura de Diego presented the last advances in her PhD research at the URJC School of Doctorate 2024
Dec 2023: ALONE Experimental pilots start in some households in rural areas
Nov 2023: ALONE Second semester coordination meeting
Jul 2023: ALONE researchers Miguel Cubero, Rubén Nieto and Álvaro Hernández attended SAAEI 2023 in Sevilla
Jun 2023: ALONE First semester coordination meeting
May 2023: ALONE researchers Laura de Diego, Rubén Nieto and Álvaro Hernández attended MetroLivEnv 2023 in Milano
Apr 2023: ALONE Preliminary tests in some selected households start
Dic 2022: ALONE collaborates in the organization of the Special Session #2 Active and Assisted Living Environments at MetroLivEnv 2023
Dic 2022: ALONE kick-off
Welcome to ALONE project
The aging of population in recent years has become a key aspect in the definition of future social and health policies in Europe, a continent
where people over 50 years old already constitute 37% of the population. Combined with an increased demand for long-term care in
elderly, this evolution will constrain the sustainability of health systems. This challenge only seems achievable if the accessibility to care
and suitable treatment is ensured, an aspect that becomes a critical issue in rural and semi-urban regions, where in Spain (and other
European countries) the proportion of people over 65-year-olds or more is above the national average, and where there is often a less
widespread access to social and health resources and services.
To deal with this situation, European policies are increasingly focused on allowing older adults to live safely and independently at home,
rather than institutionalizing them, through new strategies of care and treatment. In this context, the use of technological solutions for the
home care digitization turns out to be an attractive and feasible solution in rural and semi-urban areas, where the people involved can be
encouraged to live in their own environment for as long as possible, and with the best possible quality.
The main contribution of the project is the definition, design and development of a comprehensive system capable of using the power
consumption from a home to non-intrusively monitor the daily activity of tenants, and use that information to digitize care at home, as well
as to foster independent living of elderly, with a certain degree of dependency, and/or cognitive disorders,
in rural areas with low population density. Based on a single, minimally invasive, electrical consumption measurement point,
NILM techniques and intelligent systems will be applied to determine the electrical appliances active at any time. Not only high-power
devices will be detected, but also those with lower consumption, whose detection is not solved in the current state of the art, and which are
equally relevant for the subsequent identification of behavioural routines. From there, we will proceed: on the one hand, to the detection of
anomalies in the short term; and, on the other hand, to the long-term monitoring of the performance of certain activities of daily life, as well
as their evaluation, so that tools can be provided for the digitization of home care. The system will be based on an MPSoC architecture in
an FPGA device that, locally (edge computing), will implement all the previously described algorithms in real time. Only the final results
from the identification of household appliances and the recognition of activities will be sent to the cloud for further analysis. This minimizes
the communication requirements of the local system, a key factor in rural areas with coverage restrictions.
CONTACT E-MAIL:
Álvaro Hernández (Universidad de Alcalá)
Oct 2025: ALONE Alejandro García successfully submitted and presented his PhD thesis
Oct 2025: ALONE Laura de Diego successfully submitted and presented her PhD thesis
Aug 2025: ALONE closing
Jul 2025: ALONE researchers María C. Pérez, Laura de Diego, Alejandro García and Álvaro Hernández attended SAAEI 2025 in Aranjuez
Jul 2025: ALONE Dian Tian successfully submitted and presented his PhD thesis
Jun 2025: ALONE Last semester coordination meeting
Nov 2024: ALONE researcher Álvaro Hernández attended DCIS 2024 in Catania
Jul 2024: ALONE researcher Laura de Diego attended COINS 2024 in London
Jul 2024: ALONE researchers María C. Pérez, Laura de Diego, Alejandro García and Álvaro Hernández attended SAAEI 2024 in Granada
Jun 2024: ALONE Third semester coordination meeting
Jun 2024: ALONE researcher Alejandro García attended MeMeA 2024 in Eindhoven
May 2024: ALONE researchers Víctor Navarro and Álvaro Hernández attended I2MTC 2024 in Glasgow
Apr 2024: ALONE researcher Laura de Diego presented the last advances in her PhD research at the URJC School of Doctorate 2024
Dec 2023: ALONE Experimental pilots start in some households in rural areas
Nov 2023: ALONE Second semester coordination meeting
Jul 2023: ALONE researchers Miguel Cubero, Rubén Nieto and Álvaro Hernández attended SAAEI 2023 in Sevilla
Jun 2023: ALONE First semester coordination meeting
May 2023: ALONE researchers Laura de Diego, Rubén Nieto and Álvaro Hernández attended MetroLivEnv 2023 in Milano
Apr 2023: ALONE Preliminary tests in some selected households start
Dic 2022: ALONE collaborates in the organization of the Special Session #2 Active and Assisted Living Environments at MetroLivEnv 2023
Dic 2022: ALONE kick-off
Welcome to ALONE project
The aging of population in recent years has become a key aspect in the definition of future social and health policies in Europe, a continent
where people over 50 years old already constitute 37% of the population. Combined with an increased demand for long-term care in
elderly, this evolution will constrain the sustainability of health systems. This challenge only seems achievable if the accessibility to care
and suitable treatment is ensured, an aspect that becomes a critical issue in rural and semi-urban regions, where in Spain (and other
European countries) the proportion of people over 65-year-olds or more is above the national average, and where there is often a less
widespread access to social and health resources and services.
To deal with this situation, European policies are increasingly focused on allowing older adults to live safely and independently at home,
rather than institutionalizing them, through new strategies of care and treatment. In this context, the use of technological solutions for the
home care digitization turns out to be an attractive and feasible solution in rural and semi-urban areas, where the people involved can be
encouraged to live in their own environment for as long as possible, and with the best possible quality.
The main contribution of the project is the definition, design and development of a comprehensive system capable of using the power
consumption from a home to non-intrusively monitor the daily activity of tenants, and use that information to digitize care at home, as well
as to foster independent living of elderly, with a certain degree of dependency, and/or cognitive disorders,
in rural areas with low population density. Based on a single, minimally invasive, electrical consumption measurement point,
NILM techniques and intelligent systems will be applied to determine the electrical appliances active at any time. Not only high-power
devices will be detected, but also those with lower consumption, whose detection is not solved in the current state of the art, and which are
equally relevant for the subsequent identification of behavioural routines. From there, we will proceed: on the one hand, to the detection of
anomalies in the short term; and, on the other hand, to the long-term monitoring of the performance of certain activities of daily life, as well
as their evaluation, so that tools can be provided for the digitization of home care. The system will be based on an MPSoC architecture in
an FPGA device that, locally (edge computing), will implement all the previously described algorithms in real time. Only the final results
from the identification of household appliances and the recognition of activities will be sent to the cloud for further analysis. This minimizes
the communication requirements of the local system, a key factor in rural areas with coverage restrictions.
CONTACT E-MAIL:
Álvaro Hernández (Universidad de Alcalá)
