The objective of this project is to enable people with low mobility, including recovering patients, paraplegics, and the elderly, control their hospital bed (Hill-Rom VersaCare model), television, and room lights via voice recognition. It is common for nurses/caretakers to take multiple trips to a patient's room to complete simple tasks such as changing the channel on the TV, turning the lights on and off, and raising or lowering the bed position. Our product aims to take automate these menial tasks.
In order to complete this, our goal is to design the Environment for Voice Enablement (EVE) with the help of two faculty advisors, Dr. Frank Barnes and Dr. Kimberly Newman. EVE is a voice recognition environment that will allow low-mobility patients to independently control the mentioned electronics in their room. This voice recognition application will be designed to work on an Android device, specifically on a Samsung Galaxy Tab 4. This tablet will wirelessly connect to a set of Bluetooth peripherals where microcontrollers will enable various functions such as using solenoids to push buttons on the hospital bed control panel, outputting recorded infrared signals, and supplying/cutting power to a custom-made lightbulb. Based on voice input, the user will have the ability to control the TV, lights, bed position, as well as call a nurse/caretaker.