Research projects
I am currently involved or in the following projects. If you are interested in a collaboration on some of the listed topics, or if you want to contribute, please feel free to contact me.
FALLARM
This project aims at developing a pervasive fall prevention solution suitable for hospitals and care facilities, as well as for home settings. We apply a multifaceted intervention strategy based on closed-loop information exchange between proactive and reactive methods: comprehensive assessment protocols determine the individuals’ risk of falling; an innovative device continuously monitors subjects’ activities, and it provides patients with constant feedback about their actual risk. Thus, its purpose is to increase users’ awareness; simultaneously, it realizes measures to prevent adverse events, and it reports any incident. As a result, our solution may offer a comprehensive strategy for the remote management of a person’s risk of falling 24 hours a day, enabling many vulnerable people to remain living independently.
DB-Hand
DB-HAND, is an assistive hardware/software system that supports users to autonomously interact with the environment, to establish social relationships and to gain access to information sources without an assistant. DB-HAND consists of an input/output wearable peripheral (a glove equipped with sensors and actuators) that acts as a natural interface since it enables communication using a language that is easily learned by a deafblind: Malossi method. Interaction with DB-HAND is managed by a software environment, whose purpose is to translate text into sequences of tactile stimuli (and vice-versa), to execute commands and to deliver messages to other users. It also provides multi-modal feedback on several standard output devices to support interaction with the hearing and the sighted people.
Multimodal mouse for Sight-Impaired People
The projects consists in the development of a multipurpose system that allows especially blind and deafblind people playing chess or other board games over a network, therefore reducing their disability barrier. We describe and benchmark a prototype of a special interactive haptic device for online gaming providing a dual tactile feedback. The novel interface of this proposed device is able to guarantee not only a better game experience for everyone but also an improved quality of life for sight-impaired people.
