The electronic heart of the Netcarity house

(March 2009) The designer of Netcarity’s server discusses the challenges in ensuring swift service delivery to older people.

Zdenek Kouba and his team of three at CVUT Prague developed the server for Netcarity’s trial homes. “The Netcarity house will enable older people to have a better level of service delivery. If they fall over, for example, a message is sent quickly to a service centre. The server is where these important messages are stored,” Kouba says.

A key challenge CVUT faced was to design a server with a fast response time. The server is the base of all electronic acquired knowledge about the Netcarity house. It needs to be robust in both design and information processing.

From trial to market

The prototype server will be used in trials with older users towards the end of 2009 in Netcarity test apartments in Eindhoven.

In the longer term, Zdenek expects to collaborate with industry on the manufacture of the server. This will enable a low-cost yet reliable system to serve an emerging mass market to fulfil the needs of older people in their homes.

“Our work is about bringing technology to the older person and delivering services to the home. On a personal level, I have enjoyed working on Netcarity and have gained new experiences from this project,” Kouba says.

Privacy

The Netcarity server will hold appropriate levels of details about users and their service requirements. CVUT is committed to a server design that protects users’ privacy. Zdenek’s team, together with Ikerlan in Spain, is working with the latest advances in technology to protect users’ privacy.