Overview of Smart Airbag to Protect the Elderly when Falling
Main Article Content
Abstract
Population aging is considered one of the prominent trends of the 21st century, manifested by the rapidly increasing proportion of elderly people, which profoundly impacts all aspects of a country, territory, and even globally. As the human body ages and its functions decline, falls become a significant risk to both physical and mental health, causing severe injuries to the elderly and creating a financial burden for their families. Therefore, proactive protective devices are highly valued for development to protect the elderly's bodies from serious injuries in the event of a fall. Airbags, which are known as safety components in automobiles, are designed to deploy during a collision to protect the occupants by reducing the force applied to the body by the dashboard, steering wheel, or any part of an automobile. Smart airbags are also designed to protect the elderly in a fall. The airbag will be inflated rapidly before falling to hug the body area that needs protection as a cushion to reduce the impact force between the body and the ground, thereby reducing injury to the body when falling. This paper provides an overview of research on smart airbags for protecting elderly people when falling, the sensors used in smart airbags, and the parameters that determine the moment of a fall.
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References
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[19] Yunkung Ning, Yanan Diao, Guanghui Wang, Nan Lou, and Guanglin Li, Automatic fall protection for hips based on micromechanical double gas cylinder rapid puncture and bionic capsule inflation, in 2021 43rd Annual International Conference of the IEEE Engineering in Medicine & Biology Society (EMBC), Mexico, Nov. 01-05, 2021, pp. 6783–6786. https://doi.org/10.1109/EMBC46164.2021.9630780
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[2] Beomgeun Jo, Youngho Lee, Jaemin Kim, Soonmoon Jung, Dongwook Yang, Jeongwoo Lee, and Junghwa Hong, Design of wearable airbag with injury reducing system, in Proceedings of the 3rd International Conference on Information and Communication Technologies for Ageing Well and e-Health (ICT4AWE 2017), 2017, pp. 188-191.
https://doi.org/10.5220/0006365401880191
[3] Nguyen Thu Phuong, Fall prevention in older adults, Ministry of Hearlth. (In Vietnamese: Phòng chống té ngã ở người cao tuổi), 2020. [Online]. Available: https://moh.gov.vn/web/phong-chong-tai-nan-thuong-tich/tin-noi-bat/-/asset_publisher/iinMRn208ZoI/content/phong-chong-te-nga-o-nguoi-cao-tuoi, Accessed on: Aug. 15, 2025.
[4] M. S. Parvez, M. M. Rahman, M. Samykano, and Mohammad Yeakub Ali, Current advances in fabric-based airbag material selection, design and challenges for adoption in futuristic automobile applications, Materials Today: Proceedings, vol. 107, pp. 158–165, 2024.
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.matpr.2023.09.081
[5] Tasnim N. Shaikh, Satyajeet Chaudhari, and Hiren Rasania, Tasnim, Airbags: a safety restraint system of an automobile, Journal of Engineering Research and Application, vol. 3, iss. 5, Sep-Oct. 2013, pp. 615-621.
[6] Metwaly, F., A., Ramadan, E., M., and Abdel-Tawab, H., K, Achieving optimum functional properties for producing automotive airbags fabrics, Journal of American Science; vol. 10, iss. 4, pp. 55-69, Apr. 2014.
[7] Hireni Mankodi and Bhumik Kodinaria, Airjet textured yarn fabrics for airbags: an innovative approach, Journal of Textile Science & Engineering, vol. 10, iss. 6, 2020.
[8] Gülşah Pamuk, Airbags: an overview, e-Journal of New World Sciences Academy, vol. 3, no. 2, pp. 225-231, 2008, Art. no.A0066
[9] Guangyi Shi, Cheung-Shing Chan, Yilun Luo, Guanglie Zhang, Wen J. Lii, Philip H. W. Leong, and Kwok-Sui Leung, Development of a human airbag system for fall protection using MEMS motion sensing technology, in 2006 IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems, Beijing, China, Oct. 9 - 15, 2006, pp. 4405-4410. https://doi.org/10.1109/IROS.2006.282019
[10] Cheung Shing Chan, Guangyi Shi, Yilun Luo, Guanglie Zhang, Wen J. Li, Philip H. W. Leong, and Kwok-Sui Leung, A human - airbag system for hip protection using MEMS motion sensors: experimental feasibility results, in Proceedings of the 2006 IEEE, International Conference on Mechatronics and Automation, Luoyang, China, Jun. 25-28, 2006, pp. 831-836. https://doi.org/10.1109/ICMA.2006.257717
[11] Guangyi Shi, Cheung Shing Chan, Wen Jung Li, Kwok-Sui Leung, Yuexian Zou, and Yufeng Jin, Mobile human airbag system for fall protection using MEMS sensors and embedded SVM classifier, IEEE Sensors Journal, vol. 9, iss. 5, May 2009, pp. 495-503. https://doi.org/10.1109/JSEN.2008.2012212
[12] Toshiyo Tamura, Takumi Yoshimura, Masaki Sekine, Mitsuo Uchida, and Osamu Tanaka, A wearable airbag to prevent fall injuries, IEEE Transactions on Information Technology in Biomedicine, vol. 13, no. 6, Nov. 2009, pp. 910-914. https://doi.org/10.1109/TITB.2009.2033673
[13] Toshiyo Tamura, Takumi Yoshimura, Masaki Sekine, and Mitsuo Uchida, Development of a wearable airbag for preventing fall related injuries, Human Centered Design, HCII 2011, Part of the book series Lecture Notes in Computer Science LNISA, vol. 6776, 2011, pp. 335-339. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-21753-1_38
[14] Qi Zhang, Huiqi Li, Yunkun Ning, Ding Liang, Guoru Zhao, Design and realization of a wearable hip-airbag system for fall protection, Applied Mechanics and Materials, vol. 461, Nov. 2013, pp. 667-674, https://doi.org/10.4028/www.scientific.net/AMM.461.667
[15] Mian Yao, Qi Zhang, Menghua Li, Huiqi Li, Yunkun Ning, Gaosheng Xie, Guoru Zhao, Yingnan Ma, Xing Gao, and Zhongzhen Jin, A wearable pre – impact fall early warning and protection system based on MEMS inertial sensor and GPRS communication, in 2015 IEEE 12th International Conference on Wearable and Implantable Body Sensor Networks (BSN), Cambridge, MA, USA, Jun. 9-12, 2015. https://doi.org/10.1109/BSN.2015.7299397
[16] Youngho Lee, Beomguen Jo, Jeoungwoo Lee, Jaemin Kim, Soonmoon Jung, Taekyung Lee, and Junghwa Hong, Experimental verification of fall simulation and wearable protect airbag, in Proceedings of the 4th International Conference on Information and Communication Technologies for Ageing Well and e-Health ICT4AWE, Funchal, Madeira, Portugal, vol. 1, 2018, pp. 215-218. https://doi.org/10.5220/0006785202150218
[17] T. Padma, Ch. Usha Kumari, and M. Bhargav, Smart fall detection and protection for elderly people, A Journal of Physical Sciences, Engineering and Technology, vol. 12, special issue (3), pp. 53-56, 2020.
[18] Haneul Jung, Bummo Koo, Jongman Kim, Taehee Kim, Yejin Nam, and Youngho Kim, Enhanced algorithm for the detection of preimpact fall for wearable airbags, Sensors, vol. 20, iss. 5, Feb. 2020. https://doi.org/10.3390/s20051277
[19] Yunkung Ning, Yanan Diao, Guanghui Wang, Nan Lou, and Guanglin Li, Automatic fall protection for hips based on micromechanical double gas cylinder rapid puncture and bionic capsule inflation, in 2021 43rd Annual International Conference of the IEEE Engineering in Medicine & Biology Society (EMBC), Mexico, Nov. 01-05, 2021, pp. 6783–6786. https://doi.org/10.1109/EMBC46164.2021.9630780
[20] Sakthivel Sankaran, Arun Prasath Thiyagarajan, Athi Deepthi Kannan, Karishma Karnan, and Soundharya Radha krishnan, Design and development of smart airbag suit for elderly with protection and notification system, in Proceedings of the 6th International Conference on Communication and Electronics Systems (ICCES), Coimbatore, India, Jul. 8-10, 2021, pp. 1273-1278. https://doi.org/10.1109/ICCES51350.2021.9488972
[21] Mariam Ibrahim, Shuruq Shawish, Sabri Aldroubi, Ali Dawoud, and Walid Abdin, Airbag protection and alerting system for elderly people, Applied Sciences, vol. 13, iss. 16, 9354, Aug. 2023. https://doi.org/10.3390/app13169354
[22] Sena Sukmananda Suprapto, Vicky Andria Kusuma, Aji Akbar Firdaus, Wahyu Haryanto Putra, and Risty Jayanti Yuniar, Design and build an airbag system for elderly fall protection using the MPU6050 sensor module, International Journal of Reconfigurable and Embedded Systems (IJRES) 111, vol. 13, iss. 1, Mar. 2024, pp. 111-116. https://doi.org/10.11591/ijres.v13.i1.pp. 111-11