6 / 28
Sensor100
May 2016
6
The Sphere House continued...
SPHERE - a Sensor Platform for HEalthcare in a
Residential Environment - is a £15 million proj-
ect with major funding by the Engineering and
Physical Science Research Council. The project
is a joint effort by the Universities of Bristol,
Reading and Southampton, in collaboration with
IBM,Toshiba, Bristol City Council, and the Na-
tional Institute of Health Research. The project
runs until 2018.
The premise of the project is that by monitoring a plethora of indices - air
temperature and quality, how often taps are turned on,
use of TV and major appliances and many others - infor-
mation on the occupants’ health can be derived by data
mining,
“This system, which is invisibly embedded in the house,
monitors changes that might be correlated with certain
health conditions,” explains University of Bristol Pro-
fessor Ian Craddock, who is leading the research team.
“Many long-term health conditions are highly correlated
to lifestyle,” Craddock says.“For example, if someone is
sleeping more than they used to, eating less, and slouch-
ing, it may be a sign they are developing depression. ” Or presumably the
result of many other lifestyle/behavioural factors?
The intention of SPHERE is not to develop sensor technology specifically
for individual disease conditions but rather to impact a range of healthcare
needs simultaneously by employing data-fusion and pattern-recognition
from a common platform of largely non-medical/environmental networked
sensors in a home environment.
Prof. Ian Craddock
University of Bristol
Faculty of Engineering