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 The NIW Project Documentation Deliverables Private
Area NIW@SMC2011 NIW@FET11 |  Participants
UNIUD - Dipartimento di Informatica e Matematica of the Università di Udine The University of Udine owns one of the oldest and most renowned computer science departments in Italy. Federico Fontana (Contact Person) is assistant professor in the Dipartimento di Informatica e Matematica of the University of Udine, teaching sound processing and object-oriented programming. He has ongoing collaboration with UNIVR, where he teaches non visual interaction and leads the sound branch of the Video, Image Processing and Sound Laboratory. In 2001 he was visiting scholar at the Laboratory of Acoustics and Audio Signal Processing, Helsinki University of Technology (Espoo, Finland). In 2003 he received the PhD in computer science from the University of Verona. He has been team member in the EU Project IST 2000-25287 SOb, and consulted for the EU Projects IST 2001-37117 RACINE-S and IST-2-511316-IP RACINE-IP. He has been team member and, later, local coordinator of the EU Project FP6-NEST-29085 CLOSED, and of a EFSD-Novartis projects funded as part of the European Program for Clinical Research in Diabetes. He coordinates the industrial project E-PHASE - Electronic piano with Haptic And Spatial Enhancements, involving the University of Verona and Viscount SpA; the cultural project REVIVAL - REstoration of the Vicentini archive In Verona and its accessibility as an Audio e-Library, involving the University of Verona and Arena di Verona Foundation. He is Guest Editor of the special issue "Virtual analog audio effects and musical instruments" in the IEEE Transactions on Audio, Speech and Language Processing, and the special issue "Musical Applications of Real-Time Signal Processing" in the EURASIP Journal on Advances in Signal Processing. He is scientific program chair of HAID 2010, in Copenaghen. His current interests are in the design and interactive synthesis of sounds, the evaluation of non visual interfaces, and in nonlinear signal processing. McGill University - Centre for Intelligent Machines – Shared Reality and Intelligent Environments Lab McGill is the top research university in Canada (Macleans's 2005 and 2006 rankings) and is the only Canadian university to be ranked among the top 12 in the world (Times 2007 rankings). The Centre for Intelligent Machines (CIM) is an inter-departmental inter-faculty research group at McGill, formed to facilitate and promote research on intelligent systems. The members of CIM seek to advance the state of knowledge in such domains as robotics, design, artificial intelligence, computer vision, medical imaging, haptics, systems and control and ultra-videoconferencing. CIM faculty and students come from the Departments of Computer Science, Electrical and Computer Engineering, and Mechanical Engineering. Many of CIM's researchers are members of REPARTI, the Regroupement stratégique pour l'étude des Environnements PARTagés Intelligents répartis, which studies distributed intelligent shared environments. CIRMMT is The Centre for Interdisciplinary Research in Music Media and Technology, a multi-disciplinary research group centred at McGill University. CIRMMT seeks to develop innovative approaches to the scientific study of music media and technology, to promote the application of newer technologies in science and the creative arts, and to provide an advanced research training environment. Its researchers are active on the national and international stage and are implicated in six European networks (S2S², Enactive Interfaces, Integra, BrainTuning, COST ConGAS, COST SID), and one French network (Consonnes). The Shared Reality Lab conducts research in Intelligent Environments and the communication of high-fidelity data between distributed users in such environments. The goal of Shared Reality is to achieve high-fidelity distributed interaction, with both real and virtual data, at levels of presence that support the most demanding applications, and to do so in spite of sensor and bandwidth limitations. The lab's research is currently supported primarily by grants and contracts from NSERC, FQRNT, and Canarie Inc. The involvement in NIW will deal with the computational understanding and haptic synthesis of multimodal information. Jeremy Cooperstock (Ph.D., University of Toronto, 1996) is an associate professor in the department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, a member of the Centre for Intelligent Machines, and a founding member of the Centre for Interdisciplinary Research in Music Media and Technology (CIRMMT) at McGill. He directs the Shared Reality Lab and leads technical development of the Ultra-Videoconferencing system, for which he was recognized by an award for Most Innovative Use of New Technology from ACM/IEEE Supercomputing and a Distinction Award from the Audio Engineering Society. His research interests focus on computer mediation to facilitate high-fidelity human communication. Cooperstock has worked with IBM at the Haifa Research Center, Israel, and the T.J. Watson Research Center in Yorktown Heights, NY. He was visiting researcher at the Sony Computer Science Laboratory in Tokyo, Japan. He chairs the Audio Engineering Society (AES) Technical Committee on Network Audio Systems and is an associate editor of the Journal of the AES. Yon Visell is a PhD candidate in Electrical and Computer Engineering at McGill, affiliated with the Centre for Intelligent Machines and CIRMMT. His research concerns the design of new interactive systems that make use of bodily movement for interaction, through machine learning algorithms for movement, and new input devices. He serves as a key research staff member for the EU IST-FET research project CLOSED, and is national coordinator for Canada to the COST Action IC-0601 SID “Sonic Interaction Design”. He received the Master’s degree in Physics from the University of Texas. He has worked as a research scientist at Applied Research Labs in Austin and at Loquendo in San Francisco, on fundamental speech and acoustic recognition and signal processing research, funded under the aegis of DARPA. In Berlin, he led DSP development for the computer music platform Ableton Live, and in 2005 co-founded the art and technology research organization Zero-Th in Croatia. AAU - Institute of Media technology and Engineering Studies (IMI) at Aalborg University The IMI was inaugurated on September 1st, 2005. IMI is composed of several research groups that have been active in research for several decades. The head of the institute is Erik Granum. The Institute's laboratory which will take part to the NIW project is Medialogy. Medialogy, founded in September 2004, is active in research on sound synthesis for interactive media and VR, photo-realistic image based rendering, computer vision, human perception and evaluation techniques for interactive media. The group has 10 faculty members, 7 PhD students, and support from technical and administrative staff. Currently Medialogy is involved in the following EU projects: Paco-Plus (IST-FP6-IP-027657), Sound forum Oresund (Interreg III) and the COST Action IC-0601 SID “Sonic Interaction Design”. Previously it was involved in BENOGO (Being There Without Going), EU IST FET PRESENCE (2002-2005). IMI includes the VR Media Lab, the advanced virtual reality visualization center of the university, which has three different display arenas: 3D-auditorium (8m wide screen, 80 seats), a Panorama (7.1 m diameter, 160 deg, 28 seats), and a 6-sided CAVE. IMI will contribute to NIW by bringing technical skills in sound synthesis by physical models and sensors technology, and will provide expertise in designing, implementing and testing multimodal immersive systems. The VR facilities of IMI (CAVE, Panorama, 3D auditorium) will be extensively used during testing. Erik Granum is a full professor of information systems (BScEE 1967, MSc 1973, PhD 1981). He has worked in industry, and done research on automated chromosome analysis and cytogenetics with Rigshospitalet, Copenhagen, and for the Medical Research Council in Edinburgh. Since 1983 he has been with Aalborg Universitet, where he founded a laboratory for research in image analysis, pattern recognition and computer vision. He has had and has numerous national and international grants for research in computer vision and AR/VR, and has been and is partner or coordinator of several EU projects and networks under ESPRIT and HCM/TMR (active vision, robotics, multimedia, and virtual reality). He is also the coordinator of BENOGO, an EU IST FET PRESENCE I project. He was one of the main actors in the establishment of a multimedia center and a large virtual reality center (1999) at Aalborg University, and he has taken much interest in interdisciplinary research, which characterizes many of his current projects. He is a frequent reviewer for national and international bodies, journals and conferences, and he has given or coauthored more than sixty scientific contributions. Stefania Serafin is associate professor in Medialogy at Aalborg University in Copenhagen. She has been within Medialogy from 2003, and she was among the founders of the department in Copenhagen. She received a PhD in Computer Based Music Theory and Acoustics from Stanford University (2004) and a Master in Acoustics, Signal Processing and Computer Science applied to Music from IRCAM, Centre Pompidou in Paris (1999). She has been visiting researcher at Cambridge University (2002) and KTH in Stockholm (Summer 2003), and visiting professor at the University of Virginia (Spring 2003). She has published several papers on the field of sound synthesis by physical models and design of novel interfaces. She is currently Danish delegate for the COST Action IC-0601 SID “Sonic Interaction Design” and Medialogy representative of the Sound forum Oresund project (Interreg III). She is frequently reviewer for international journals and conferences, and she was paper chair of ICMC 2007 as well as appointed publication chair at NIME 2008. Rolf Nordahl is a Ph.D. student in Medialogy at Aalborg University Copenhagen. He is Campus Coordinator of Basic Studies in Engineering, Science and Medicine at Aalborg University Copenhagen as well as Medialogy representative in the Danish National Academy of Digital Interactive Entertainment (Dadiu). INRIA - French National Institute for Research in Computer Science and Control INRIA operates under the dual authority of the French Ministry of Research and the Ministry of Industry, and is dedicated to fundamental and applied research in information and communication science and technology (ICST). Throughout its nine research units, INRIA has a workforce of 3,500 - 2,700 of whom are scientists from INRIA’s partner organizations such as CNRS (the French National Centre for Scientific Research) or universities and leading engineering schools. BUNRAKU is the INRIA team involved more specifically in NIW. It involves more than 40 researchers and engineers, devoted to research and development in Virtual Reality, Multimodal Interaction, Behavioural Animation, and Computer Graphics. BUNRAKU is or was involved in numerous European or National projects. As an example, BUNRAKU was the co-leader of PERF-RV, the first French Platform on Virtual Reality, which federated more than 15 industrial and academic partners interested by the field of Virtual Reality. BUNRAKU is the current scientific coordinator of PERF-RV2, the follow-up of PERF-RV, which gathers today more than 20 French partners. Furthermore, BUNRAKU (and INRIA) is currently in the core group of the European Network of Excellence on Virtual Reality INTUITION (IST-NMP-1-507248-2). Inside INTUITION, BUNRAKU is the leader of the working group on “Haptic Interaction”, with more than 20 partners, in charge of promoting and developing the haptic activities of the network. In the frame of NIW, INRIA is the leader of WP5, “Pseudo-Haptics and perceptual evaluations”. INRIA is the co-inventor of the concept of “pseudo-haptic feedback” with a first publication at IEEE VR in 2000 [Lécuyer et al., 2000]. Since 2000, INRIA validated this concept through numerous experimental and perceptual studies. INRIA also promoted and developed applications of pseudo-haptics in various fields, such as for medical simulation, vocational training, or graphical user interfaces, etc. All these results were systematically published in numerous papers in reference conferences and journals (IEEE VR, ACM CHI, Presence, ACM TAP, Haptics symposium, Eurohaptics, etc). With this background in pseudohaptics but also haptics and perceptual evaluations, INRIA will naturally be in charge of the development of novel pseudo-haptic techniques of the project as well as of the supervision of perceptual evaluations of other basic technologies. Anatole Lécuyer is responsible for INRIA activities inside the NIW project. Anatole Lécuyer received his Ph.D. in Computer Science in 2001 from University of Paris XI, France, and since 2002 he is a senior researcher at INRIA in the BUNRAKU research team. He is currently the coordinator of the Open-ViBE National project on Brain-Computer Interfaces, and the leader of the Working Group on Haptic Interaction of INTUITION European Network of Excellence. He is or was an expert in Virtual Reality and haptics for national public bodies and a member of International Program Committees (World Haptics, Eurohaptics, etc). He is or was the organizer of tutorials on haptics (IEEE VR, Eurohaptics, etc) and is currently an associate editor of the ACM Transactions on Applied Perception. His main research interests include: virtual reality, 3D interaction, haptic feedback, pseudo-haptic feedback and braincomputer interfaces. UPMC - Université Pierre et Marie Curie - Paris 6 – Institut des Systèmes Intelligents et de Robotique (ISIR) ISIR is a research lab of the UPMC, associated to the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS). It was created on the first of January, 2007 through the grouping of three teams at the UPMC: The Laboratoire de Robotique de Paris; the group Perception et Réseaux Connexionnistes (PRC) du Laboratoire des Instruments et Systèmes d'Ile de France (LISIF); and the AnimatLab team from the Laboratoire d'Informatique de Paris 6 (LIP6). ISIR is a pluridisciplinary research laboratory, which gathers disciplines of Engineering and Computer Science including mechanics, automation, signal processing, and computer science. Research in the laboratory covers more specifically: Modeling and simulation of robotic systems and complex interactions; Robust control for systems, teleoperation and identification; Perceptual systems (vision, touch, speech) and signal processing; Techniques of artificial intelligence for the design of behaviors and their adaptation. Projects at the ISIR are organized around the activities of three teams of 20 to 30 personnel each: The team on Interactive Systems; The team on Human Perception and Movement; And the team on Integrated Mobile and Autonomous Systems. Areas of participation of the ISIR in robotics at the international and national level include: The EU Network of Excellence on Robotics (EURON); The EU Platform for robotic industry (EUROP); The International advanced robotics program (IARP); The research group on robotics (GDR) at the CNRS (GDR-ROB). Concerning NIW, ISIR will chiefly take responsibility of the engineering of haptic devices for floor feedback. Vincent Hayward will join the Institute des Systèmes Intelligents et de Robotique at UPMC as a professor beginning September 2008. He is responsible for UMPC activities within NIW. He received the Ing. Ecole Centrale de Nantes 1978, and the Ph.D. in Computer Science in 1981 from the University of Paris. He has been Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering at McGill University, Visiting Assistant Professor, Purdue University (1982); Chargé de recherches at CNRS, France (1983-86), and Professeur invité, Université Pierre et Marie Curie (2006). Hayward is interested in haptic device design and applications, perception, and robotics. He has led the Haptics Laboratory at McGill University and was the Director of the McGill Center for Intelligent Machines (2001-2004). Hayward co-founded spin-off companies: Haptech (1996), now Immersion Canada Inc. (2000), and RealContact (2002). He is a co-Founder of the Experimental Robotics Symposia, Program Vice-Chair 1998 IEEE Conference on Robotics and Automation, Program Vice-Chair ISR2000, past Associate Editor IEEE Transactions on Robotics and Automation, Governing board Haptics-e, Editorial board of the ACM Transaction on Applied Perception. Keynote Speaker of the IFAC Symposium on Robot Control (Bologna, Italy) 2006; Eurohaptics (Munich, Germany) 2004; Workshop on Advances in Interactive Multimodal Telepresence Systems (Munich, Germany) 2001; IEEE ICMA (Osaka, Japan) 2001; Distinguished Lecturer Series, Department of Computing Science, University of Alberta (2000). Hayward received several awards including the NASA Space Act Tech Brief Award (1991) and the E. (Ben) & Mary Hochhausen Award for Research in Adaptive Technology For Blind and Visually Impaired Persons (2002). He is a Fellow of the IEEE (2008). Philippe Bidaud is the director of the Institute des Systèmes Intelligents et de Robotique at UPMC. He received his PhD degree in Mechanical Eng./ Robotics from the University of Poitiers (France) in 1984 and the habilitation for directing research from the University Paris 6 in 1996 for his work on “Design and Control of Complex Robotics Systems”. For 15 years he was as a researcher in the section of Physical Sciences for Engineers at CNRS (Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique), France. He became Full Professor at the University of Paris Pierre et Marie Curie (UPMC) in 1998. Since 1981, his research interests are the field of the design of complex robotics systems, articulated hands, locomotion systems, assembly systems, haptic devices from the view point of modeling and analysis of mechanical systems and of their associated control. He also works in complex interaction control and modeling, control of smart materials, micro-robotics systems, design and optimization of compliant structures, and high mobility systems. in 1997-98, Philippe Bidaud was a Visiting Professor at the Field and Space Laboratory of the Department of Mechanical Engineering at MIT. He has published more than 150 papers including contributions to books, journals, international conferences. He holds several patents and has been very active in technology transfer and valorisation through the Centre de Robotique Intégrée Ile de France. UNIVR - Dipartimento di Informatica of the Università di Verona - Vision, Image Processing, and Sound laboratory The University of Verona is one of the largest universities in the North-East of Italy. The Department of Computer Science started in 2000 as a spin-off of a science and technology department, and has been ranked for three consecutive years as the best computer science department of Italy by an official analysis of CENSIS (the national centre for statistical analysis of the society). The department has more than 40 faculty members covering the principal subjects of computer science. The UNIVR group will benefit of the administrative support from the department, which has a strong record of participation in national and international projects. It will mainly involved in the design and realization of the technologies for auditory sensing and feedback. Carlo Combi is Full Professor in the Department of Computer Science. Since October 2007, he is head of the Department. His main research interests are related to the database and information system field, with an emphasis on the management of clinical information. The two main areas are temporal information systems (time-oriented data and process modeling) and multimedia databases. He is author of more than 100 papers published on international journals and proceedings of international conferences. He is involved in the scientific activity of several scientific international journals and conferences. Since January 1999 he is editorial Board Member, journal Artificial Intelligence in Medicine. Since July 2009 he is chair of the Artificial Intelligence in Medicine Society (AIME). He is guest editor of several special issues of international journals (Methods of Information in Medicine, Annals of Mathematics and Artificial Intelligence, Artificial Intelligence in Medicine, Journal of Intelligent Information Systems, Computers in Biology and Medicine). He has been reviewer for several national and international journals and magazines. He has been program co-chair of several conferences and workshops (AIME'09, IDAMAP 2007 and IDAMAP 2006, TIME 2004). Paola Cesari(Ph.D Penn State University 1999) is an Assistant professor at the University of Verona in the Department of Neurological and Visual Science. She teaches Motor Control and Bioengineering in the Movement Science Faculty, and in three Masters (1- Information Elaboration of Biomedical data and Tele control in Medicine, 2- Adapted Motor Activity and 3- Multimedia and Video Creation). She was visiting Associate Professor at Penn State University U.S.A. at the Kinesiology Department from 2004 to 2006. She is director of LAP (Laboratory Action Perception) and responsible of a research group now counting 3 post doc, 3 PhD students, 4 senior researchers. She was awarded an NSF grant (2006-2009). Stefano Papetti is a post-doc researcher in the Department of Computer Science. He graduated in computer science in May 2010. His research deals with models and applications of interactive sound synthesis, and with the design and evaluation of auditory and haptic interfaces. |