Finn Overgaard Hansen

Ambient Assisted Living Healthcare Frameworks, Platforms, Standards, and Quality Attributes

Ambient Assisted Living (AAL) is an emerging multi-disciplinary field aiming at exploiting information and communication technologies in personal healthcare and telehealth systems for countering the effects of growing elderly population. AAL systems are developed for personalized, adaptive, and anticipatory requirements, necessitating high quality-of-service to achieve interoperability, usability, security, and accuracy. The aim of this paper is to provide a comprehensive review of the AAL field with a focus on healthcare frameworks, platforms, standards, and quality attributes. To achieve this, we conducted a literature survey of state-of-the-art AAL frameworks, systems and platforms to identify the essential aspects of AAL systems and investigate the critical issues from the design, technology, quality-of-service, and user experience perspectives. In addition, we conducted an email-based survey for collecting usage data and current status of contemporary AAL systems. We found that most AAL systems are confined to a limited set of features ignoring many of the essential AAL system aspects. Standards and technologies are used in a limited and isolated manner, while quality attributes are often addressed insufficiently. In conclusion, we found that more inter-organizational collaboration, user-centered studies, increased standardization efforts, and a focus on open systems is needed to achieve more interoperable and synergetic AAL solutions.

Modelling patterns for systems of systems architectures

This paper presents an initial report on modelling patterns and architectures for system of systems (SoSs) and their constituent systems (CSs). Fundamental architectural principles for systems and SoSs and relevant work published so far are discussed and summarised. We introduce an initial set of five architectural patterns suitable for SoS design, illustrating each pattern with an SoS example and identifying how it meet some basic SoS aims. Finally, we summarise our plans for developing these ideas in the future.

A Model-Based Approach for Requirements Engineering for Systems of Systems

Model-based systems engineering (MBSE) is a discipline of systems engineering in which the model forms the heart of all the systems engineering activities and is the basis of many of the project artefacts. Systems modeling is no longer viewed as simply a “good idea” but is becoming an increasingly important part of any systems engineering project. The application of MBSE is becoming well understood at the systems level; however, there is a lack of research and subsequent industrial application at the system of systems (SoS) level. This paper presents a model-based approach to requirements engineering for SoSs. The approach is derived from an MBSE approach to requirements engineering and therefore represents current best practice in SoSs in terms of established standards and research. This paper builds upon and is an evolution of the initial foundations for model-based requirements engineering for systems of systems that were published in an earlier paper.

Technical challenges of SoS requirements engineering

Taken by themselves separate aspects of systems of systems (SoS) can be addressed by conventional system engineering techniques. That is, at least to a large degree, we know how to address the problems of distribution, emergence and evolution. The specific challenges posed by SoS arise from their combination. Additionally, we have to deal with independence of constituent systems (CS) of SoS, in particular, managerial independence. In this article we focus on technical challenges of mastering SoS requirements. Based on techniques for systems engineering we sketch problems that appear specifically in SoS engineering if we want to be able to use conventional engineering techniques as much as possible. The ultimate aim of our work is to develop tools that can support SoS requirements engineering.

Distributed ICT Architecture for Developing, Configuring and Monitoring Mobile Embedded Healthcare Systems

This paper presents a system architecture to support remote access to mobile embedded healthcare systems during development and use. It describes the system architecture developed to allow remote debugging, configuration and monitoring of mobile healthcare systems as well as the prototypes that have been developed to explore the architecture. The architecture has been applied in a concrete wearable embedded healthcare system for treatment of leg venous insufficiency through compression therapy.

Energy-Aware Design of Embedded Software through Modelling and Simulation

We present a model-driven engineering approach that enables to take energy consumption into account during the development of embedded software. In this approach we address all the constituents of a typical modern embedded solution (mechanics, communication and computation subsystems) through the application of different modelling technologies. This makes it possible to evaluate the implications of different software and system architectures in the system’s energy consumption. Additionally it facilitates the exploration of the design space without having to prototype each candidate solution. We also provide details on the application of this approach to the development of a medical grade compression stocking and the benefits this approach has brought to the project currently developing this system.

A holistic approach to energy-aware design of cyber-physical systems

In this paper we present a new approach to the design of cyber-physical systems (CPSs) with limited energy availability. CPSs are normally composed of subsystems of very different nature, such as electromechanical, computational or communication subsystems. Despite this heterogeneity all of them consume energy, making this a cross-cutting concern. This approach is said to be holistic because it addresses all the subsystems that compose the CPS in a joint design effort, hence allowing tackling the energy consumption challenge effectively. Additionally, modelling is used to support it using different methods and tools depending on the subsystem under consideration. This approach has been applied to two different case studies: the development of a compression stocking to treat leg-venous insufficiency and the development of a wearable heart monitor. In both cases its application has enabled the understanding of the systems energy consumption better and from different angles, providing useful input to the creation of energy efficient realisations.

Energy-Aware Model-Driven Development of a Wearable Healthcare Device

The healthcare domain is experiencing an expansion of wearable embedded devices. These devices are typically battery powered and expected to deliver a safe and reliable service to the patient regardless of its power reserves. Being energy efficient brings an additional level of complexity to the development of these solutions. In this paper we propose the application of a well-founded model-driven energy-aware approach to tackle the energy consumption in such solutions addressing all their critical subsystems: control software, communication and mechanical components. The approach enables exploration of the design space, reduces prototyping costs and helps in build confidence in the proposed solution. We demonstrate this approach in a case study focused on the development of an intelligent compression stocking to treat leg-venous insufficiency. We also discuss how this approach has benefited the development of the actual device.