Partners

Partner 1

UTBv (Project coordinator)

University of Transilvania of Brasov

Department of Virtual Reality and Robotics/Automotive and Transportation

University of Transilvania of Brasov (UTBv) [unitbv.ro] is a public research-oriented higher education institution that has been participating in a wide variety of national and international funded research projects. It has strong international links with centres of excellence throughout Europe and overseas, research staff with a large number of publications (books, papers and patents) and an impressive number of grants won from the Government, World Bank and European Commission. This is supported by a good infrastructure, which includes good computing hardware and software and test rigs. UTBv participates in the proposal through the Virtual Reality and Robotics Department (VRRD – merged into Department of Automotive and Transportation). VRRD develops basic and applied scientific research in the following priority areas: information and communications technology – artificial intelligence, multimodal interfaces – including BCIs, robotics and autonomous systems, advanced materials, processes and innovative products – technologies and products of high precision mechanical and mechatronic systems. The overall objective of UTBv is the development of fundamental and applied scientific research in pursuit of innovative products and technologies of industrial computing and mechatronics-robotics.

VRRD Research Centre has highly qualified personnel: 2 professors who are PhD advisers, 1 associate professor, 2 lecturers, 3 researchers, 1 postdoctoral researcher and 4 PhD students. On the other hand, the ability of solving the proposed project theme stands out through knowledge, specific skills, experience, and publications of the team members (including the 7 PhD theses highly relevant to this project, coordinated and developed in the VRRD centre).

Our team is multi-disciplinary and it attracts experience on a number of areas which are relevant to eHERITAGE. The project manager has experience in managing research projects before. The experience of almost a decade from our team in developing virtual environments will support the project. The manager is also reviewer at several journals and book series, which will be helpful to drive the dissemination activities, and has long experience interacting with national and international research entities which will help with exploitation activities. Our research group supporting this project has a strong research ambition and a track record in designing and implementing innovative solutions.

 

 

Partner 2:

JSI

Jožef Stefan Institute

Department of Intelligent Systems

Department of Automatics, Biocybernetics, and Robotics

Department of Communication Systems

IJS_logoJožef Stefan Institute (JSI) [ijs.si] is the most important research institute in Slovenia and is ranked around 50th among research centers (faculties or institutes) in Europe regarding European involvement. JSI comprises of 28 research departments and employs about 1000 researchers and PhD students. JSI enjoys international recognition, participating currently in over 300 international projects. JSI has been involved in many national and international ICT projects.

Department of intelligent systems (DIS) expertise is man-machine interaction through machine learning, and its specialty is combining machine learning with expert knowledge. It also has expertise in decision support, optimization, multi-agent systems, and speech and language technologies where cultural heritage is the common motivation. DIS’s one of important application domains is e-health, where it is mainly working on the analysis of human behavior using sensor and other data. It has developed a number of methods for the analysis of physical activity, culminating in the victory at the live international EvAAL activity recognition competition in 2013. In 2014 the team from the department participated in the Tricorder 10 million competition, and was the only one from continental Europe to join the 10 final competing teams from over 300 initially interested. DIS has also worked in EUSAS project where it produced models for learning and improving human behavior. In several projects, virtual humans and virtual environments are the essential field of research. DIS has extensive experience with international collaboration, having participated in many FP6, FP7, H2020 and other international projects. It also has software-engineering expertise, resulting in a number of intelligent applications for end-users from the industry and general public.

The basic impetus of Department of Automatics, Biocybernetics, and Robotics (DABR) is to study the properties of human motion, sensori-motor control, and perception to create robots with human-like capabilities. The main goal is to apply this new type of systems to various industrial and non-industrial applications, especially to assist people at home and industrial environments. Several studies and applications deal with virtual humans and robots in the virtual environments to be tested before actual application. In this sense, heritage is treated as virtual reality services and data stored for our successors.

The research of Department of communication systems (DCS) is focused on many areas, including wireless communication technologies, computer assisted medical measurements, focused simulations of various body parts, optimization of simulations, networks of wireless multi-purpose sensors, advanced measurement analysis, and high performance computing. These areas are mostly bound by two technologies: wireless sensors and computer data analysis. This department will provide expert knowledge of human physiology, computational models of physiology, and relevant real-life measurements, made with a wearable sensor.

JSI is contributing to eHERITAGE through all the WPs of the project. In particular, JSI will lead WP4 – Strategic partnership, and will also be in charge for producing the Quality assurance plan deliverable.

 

Partner 3:

SSSA

 

Scuola Superiore Sant’Anna 

 TECIP Istitute PERCRO Laboratory

 

Partner description and relevance for eHERITAGE:

logo2xScuola Superiore Sant’Anna (SSSA) [sssup.it] is located in Pisa (Tuscany). SSSA is a public university that holds a unique position within the Italian higher education system. Research is a pivotal element at the SSSA: scientific publications, patents and spin-offs prove the ability of the School to foster and focus on intellectual property. SSSA is active in the fields of experimental sciences and social sciences and currently hosts six institutes, which all aim at developing graduate programs where rigorous traditional courses are combined with opportunities for research, service learning, internships, and entrepreneurship, both nationally and internationally.

PERCRO (Perceptual Robotics, [percro.org] is a research laboratory of the TeCIP Institute of SSSA. More than 70 researchers with multi-disciplinary background are working in the lab. Their expertise varies from mechanical design to control, electronics, computer science, software engineering, human factors, interaction design and project management. PERCRO Lab is actively engaged on research and education on Virtual Environments, Augmented Reality and Robotic design for the human machine interaction. PERCRO performs research activities in the above mentioned fields applied to industry, medicine, energy and cultural heritage and has participated and coordinated several STREPs, IPs and NoEs funded by EU in the latest 15 years. A non-exhaustive list includes the FP5, FP6 and FP7 projects: GLAD-IN-ART, SCATIS, VETIR, MORIS, PUREFORM, ENACTIVE, SKILLS, and POLYVEC as coordinator, FIVE, DRAMA, TREMOR, VIRTUAL, GRAB, CREATE, HAPTEX, INTUITION, BEAMING, PRESENCCIA, VERE, DECISION IN MOTION, VERITAS, WEARHAP, PERALS and REMEDI as participant. The ACE (Art, Culture and Education) group at PERCRO deals in particular to the applications of Virtual Environments and Robotics to culture, and has carried on a number of activities in this sector ranging from large research projects to museum installation involving immersive environments and high-level user interaction.