Project Management and Coordination
Work Package 1 (WP1) | Lead: HB | Jan Nolin (jan.nolin@hb.se)
WP1 deals with the overall management and coordination of the project, which will involve devising, and putting in place, plans and routines to ensure access to the required resources and timely and effective processes that would facilitate the conduct of research. It will also have a monitory role ensure that the project work progresses according to the plans and so that the project resources are invested wisely. It will establish the required communication with the European Commission and will ensure appropriate conduct.
User Needs, Society and Social Inclusion
Work Package 2 (WP2) | Lead: UNIVLEEDS | Raymond Holt (R.J.Holt@leeds.ac.uk)
WP2 establishes the foundation of the project by engaging with participants with deafblindness and their representatives to better understand needs and aspirations, examine policy and practice in participating countries, and identify barriers to social participation. In this way, the work package will identify specific requirements, constraints and exemplar scenarios that will guide the technical work packages. It will also establish the benchmarks against which these work packages can be evaluated and the future potential of the research to be determined.
Data Capture, Translation and Semantic Representation of Environmental Clues
Work Package 3 (WP3) | Lead: CERTH | Ioannis Kompatsiaris, ikom@iti.gr
WP3 deals with the extraction and mapping of the inner structure of high-dimensional, environmental clues to low-dimensional spaces (mainly in two or three dimensions), and help translate them into haptic signals. Environmental concepts that are semantically equivalent are grouped in the haptic space, in order to assist users in getting familiarized with the activation patterns of haptic information. Additionally, the derived information is inserted into an appropriately developed ontology, in order to infer higher-level semantic interpretations.
Perception and Navigation
Work Package 4 (WP4) | Lead: UNIVLEEDS | Brian Henson, B.Henson@leeds.ac.uk
WP4focuses on developing the sensor technology required to provide spatial information about the environment, and integrate this with the face/object recognition algorithms developed in WP3 and the Smart Texile developed in WP5 to form the final Haptic Intelligent Personalized Interface. This will start by developing an array of distance sensors to map out the space in front of the user to identify a feasible array that can be processed in real time while providing suitable fidelity when used in motion. The potential for augmenting this with GPS and inertial data to enrich the information provided will be explored, and the system will then be integrated with object and face recognition algorithms from WP3 to provide information on not only the shape of the space in front, but to locate objects of interest as well. The finalised sensor system will then be incorporated into the smart textile from WP5 to provide the full system for testing in WP6.
Smart haptic interfaces
Work Package 5 (WP5) | Lead: HB | Nils-Krister Persson, nils-krister.persson@hb.se
WP5 embraces the research, development and production of soft, haptic, textile-based, personalized interfaces in a number of different prototype generations. The hypothesis is that textiles, being the class of material closest to humans playing a role in almost any human activity provide benefits for haptic communication. Textiles, an inherently tactile material, will be explored as an interface also for active, modulated communication using haptic signalling but also employing other means such as temperature. The textile prototypes developed will not be restricted to garments but also include solutions like cushions and interior textiles. Garments but also other types of textiles are highly compatible with being personalized, sizes for different persons being the obvious example here. This personalized perspective will be expanded and taken into account when elaborating on the industrialization of prototypes.
Haptic psychophysics and prototype testing
Work Package 6 (WP6) | Lead: TU/e | Astrid Kappers, a.m.l.kappers@tue.nl
WP6, throughout the project, tests human haptic discrimination and recognition performance in psychophysical experiments. At the start, the approach will be rather fundamental and is meant to provide design specifications to other work packages that create prototype interfaces. At later stages, the haptic stimuli tested will become increasingly more sophisticated, going from one-dimensional to multi-dimensional. At all stages, prototype interfaces will be tested with sighted and hearing human volunteers. There will be intense interaction with other work packages.
Gamified and Social Interaction
Work Package 7 (WP7) | Lead: HSO | Oliver Korn, oliver.korn@acm.org
WP7 develops designs for enriching experiences, gamification of learning and enhancement of social experiences. The process is based on user requirements and will be iterated in an agile development process several times. The end solution will feature diverse 3D haptic feedback and potentially also feedback via temperature. It will take into account the potential differences in the understanding of playfulness of different groups of persons with deafblindness.
Dissemination, Knowledge-sharing & Exploitation
Work Package 8 (WP8) | Lead: Harpo | Joanna Starosta, jstarosta@harpo.com.pl
WP8 overviews, manages and combines all dissemination, knowledge sharing and exploitation activities of the project. WP8 aims to build relations with external stakeholders and a larger community around the project and disseminate the project results to gather feedback. As far as exploitation is concerned, that evolve throughout the whole project duration, running in parallel to the technical activities. The aim is to analyse the environment in which the SUITCEYES results will be used in terms of applicability to the targeted user community, conformance to regulations, market opportunities and finally to develop a business strategy capable to bring the system successfully into the market. IPR issues will also be managed within this WP.