Fagor and Ikerlan's IK4 participate in project awarded with gold medal in European Eureka-Itea programme

The European Eureka-Itea R+D programme has awarded its 2009 gold medal to the SmartTouch project, in which the Basque enterprises Fagor and Ikerlan-IK4 are participating. This project, which has received other prizes in Europe in general and in Spain in particular, develops and applies NFC (near field communication) technology for achieving simple and intuitive interaction between persons and their surroundings.

The clear goal of the technologies developed is to respond to the needs created by the mobility of persons through safe and easy-to-use services. With “a touch” to the mobile or NFC device, access to information, entertainment or the search for products and services will be enabled, as well as safe and secure payment in shops and on means of transport, etc.

This new market provides interesting opportunities for the creation of digital devices that respond to contact with or in the presence of persons, with the aim that these may have information they require, wherever they might be. Moreover, these technologies can help in reducing the digital gap amongst elderly people.

For this project, Fagor and Ikerlan-IK4 focused their research on applications related to health and comfort in the home. The systems of teleassistance, telemonitoring and domotic functions were enhanced with the use of these technologies. For example, on undertaking a blood pressure reading, the system is able to identify the person using his or her locket, bracelet or mobile phone, sending the data to the monitoring centre without having to press buttons or key in code numbers. Or when a person enters their house, the system recognises them, detects where they are and then puts into operation systems of comfort such as heating, illumination, music, etc. for that space. Likewise, it adapts these parameters when the person changes the space or room in the dwelling.

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