Research Goals and Areas of Interest

I/UCRC iPerform Center aims to conduct assistive technologies research that is of interest to both industry and the university. Assistive technologies include computer aided tools and methods to increase, maintain, or improve the functional capabilities of people with disabilities or enhance the productivity of well bodied people.

Below is a list of sample ideas:

Improving the life for persons with disabilities and the elderly

  • Tools to prevent accidents for the elderly who live alone
  • Game driven rehabilitation to keep patients engaged and active
  • Computer-supported prosthetics for amputees
  • Smart skin with sensors to measure strength
  • Assistive robotics e.g., robot guiding a bind person
  • Smart wheelchairs that understand intention
  • Therapy games for diagnosis
  • Sleep disorders analysis software to find correlations with depression, epilepsy, heart problems, etc.
  • Tools to improve homes designed for those with disabilities
  • Telecommunication methods to connect the elderly

Computer technologies to improve healthcare & lower costs

  • Sensors to enhance sensory and cognitive capabilities as well as enable remote monitoring
  • Software for healthcare training and delivery
  • Smart human sensing to personalize therapy
  • Gesture recognition and analysis of facial expressions to detect human emotions, mood or pain
  • Speech recognition and dialogue systems to allow computers and robots to communicate naturally with people
  • Systems to monitor brain activity, relation to physical activity and neuroplasticity
  • Analysis of multimodal sensor data to detect an event of interest regarding a person's condition

Manufacturing environments

  • Tools to improve work efficiency, resource allocation & automation to enhance performance in manufacturing and work environments
  • Improve work quality and enhance work creativity
  • Safety: identify & prevent accidents in manufacturing
  • Computer-aided tools to accelerate training of workers
  • Effective telecommunication
  • Remote monitoring, event recognition, and data mining
  • Cybersecurity and safety
  • Hardware & software innovation
  • Design of new devices (prosthetics, orthotics, assistive robots)
  • Training of new users
  • Simulation tools for testing