More Natural Human-Machine Interface May Benefit Medical Rehabilitation Devices

The Centre Suisse d’Electronique et de Microtechnique (CSEM) is collaborating with a number of European partners in the development of ultra-low-power wireless body-area-network systems that will enhance human-machine interface (HMI) technology. Initial markets for the EC-funded Wear-a-BAN project include smart and interactive textiles and medical rehabilitation. Video gaming is also a target market (and may well be the most lucrative one). Overall, Wear-a-BAN will enable major technological breakthroughs that will generate strong societal impact by increasing the comfort, health and security for a wide category of users in the European population, according to CSEM.

HMI could become more intuitive or natural by integrating motional and emotional information, explains a press release issued by CSEM on 27 July. Those parameters are difficult to express with standard HMI devices. A great deal of information is conveyed between humans through nonverbal communication (body language, intonations and so forth). Incorporating these cues into HMI requires a move from classical computer peripherals towards interfaces that mimic the natural human interaction. Recent advances in microelectronics, embedded signal processing and software technologies have brought more natural HMI solutions within reach, according to CSEM. Anyone who has ever wrestled with an electronic product’s user manual will be happy to learn these interfaces will require very short learning curves and favour an intuitive approach.

CSEM is the Technical Coordinator of the project and will provide an ultra low-power RF system-on-chip based on its icycom technology, with best-in-class RF power consumption as well as on-chip digital signal processing.

The Wear-a-BAN project is co-funded by the European Commission through the Research for the Benefit of Specific Groups instrument, in particular for the Associations of Small and Medium sized Enterprises (SMEs). Wear-a-BAN will contribute to enable EC policies such as eHealth for better healthcare in Europe, i2010 for fostering better inclusion of disabled people through ICT, eLearning for speeding up changes in education and training, and EU Health and Safety at work for enabling safer interaction for machine or robot operators.

Other participants include the Robotics Society of Finland, Cap Digital Paris Region, Ateval, Playall Management, Ramon Espi S.L., Movea SA, Deltatron Oy, SignalGeneriX Ltd, Voxler, Aitex, Technical University of Berlin, VTT, CEA-LETI and the coordinator RTD TALOS Ltd.

Tags: CSEM, HMI, ultra-low-power wireless body-area-network, Wear-a-BAN