Intervention areas, research axes and themes

Our intervention areas

Smart Home

Solutions that contribute to instrument living environments and to endow ambient artificial intelligence able to provide ad hoc or continue assistance to occupants and to integrate into any day-to-day object (e.g.: door, stove, mug, fridge, sweater, etc.) or place (e.g.: shopping mall, pharmacy, waiting room in hospitals, etc.) so as to be transparent for occupants.

Mobility

Solutions that contribute to prevent, to delay or to substitute the decline of human mobility i.e. their physical capacity to walk or to move and to use objects that they require to their personal well-being.

Research axes and themes

For each of these intervention areas, INTER’s integrated research program involves two axes.

Axis 1 – Design and prototype

  • Design the algorithms for distribute informatic in smart homes to identify activities and learning preferences and also to implement interfaces that interact with assisted people..
  • Design and prototype the devices and systems in nanotechnologies, microtechnologies and robotics such as sensor, signal acquisition systems and compliant actuators, interactive robots, exoskeleton, prostheses/orthotics, etc., which are able to answer the unmet needs by existing technologies in rehabilitation field.

Theme 1 – Information process

  • Develop models able to interpret information coming from many low-level sensors (motion and touch sensors, smart label, etc.) so as to identify ongoing activities, state of completion of them, to determine if the person has made mistakes or if an intervention is required.
  • Adapt the interactions based on individual preferences to assist and on needs of the professional at distance for minimizing cognitive load required to interact and gain a good awareness of situations.

Theme 2 – Devices and systems

  • Design and prototype new sensors, actuators and sophisticated systems (e.g.: distorted sensors based on carbon nanotubes on flexible substrate, exoskeleton, orthotic and prostheses, manipulator arm for motorized wheelchairs, smart wheelchairs and interactive robots) that give possibility for interacting with people and systems of operating environment so as to be more natural as possible.

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Axis 2 – Evaluation and transfers

  • Elaborate quantitative and qualitative experimental methodologies of ecological measures to allow characterization of users’ needs and performances of solutions offered in Axis 1
  • Examine the technological innovation process in rehabilitation since the beginning and throughout the project for identifying the users’ needs, social-ethical impact related to the nanotechnologies use and telecare and management of technological innovation.

Theme 1 – Evaluation in life environment

  • Take measures on practices and users’ preferences in their living environment in relation to new technologies developed in Axis 1 (e.g.: identify profile and mobility of wheelchairs users with data acquisition and processing system).

Theme 2 – Identification and evaluation

  • Identify tendencies in cares evolution and important intervention niches and evaluate the impacts of the introduction of new technology on population’s health with analysis and technical information acquisition algorithms collected in clinical databases.
  • Study the methodologies on developing innovation process.
  • Elaborate approaches to identify users’ needs, evaluate social-ethical impacts and management of technological innovation.

Mandates

Mandate proposals and writing guide
Download and complete the Mandate submission form

Mandate proposal cut-off dates
February 1st, June 1st and November 1st of each year. Send completed form to the INTER coordinator by email: catherine.page@usherbrooke.ca