SmartDrawer: RFID-based smart medicine drawer for assistive environments

Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) is an emerging technology, being used in monitoring including healthcare. We apply different types of RFID tags to monitor drug taking and its impact in an assistive environment. Compared to other active Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs), RFID tags do not need a battery, recharging, and so have no battery power loss problems. RFID tags are tiny in volume, and can be embedded into different objects. This paper talks about an RFID-based application in an assistive environment called "Smart Drawer", which tracks medicine taking for the elderly. We investigate the hardware involved to build such an application and we develop the software infrastructure to create a functional system to assist patients and caregivers with the medication procedures and also collect data for future use.