Workpackages

WP 1 - User-sensitive Inclusive Design.

The overall objective of DALi is to extend the autonomous lives of older adults. Mobility plays a key role in this extension and DALi intends to engineer a system that will support a person for navigating in urban environments and thus extend autonomous mobility in public urban places such as shopping malls. The objectives of this work package is two fold:
Objective 1.1. Identify features of crowd behaviour to feed into the system design.

Objective 1.2. Identify the needs of users who would benefit from this system and match these needs to functional requirements of the solution.

Objective 1.3. Effectively involve target users in the design process so as to ensure the development of usable, effective and acceptable devices, both from a social and from a Market perspective, which will facilitate adoption.

WP1 addresses this challenge following a user-sensitive design approach.

Objective 1.4. Identify alternative ways to elicit requirements which reduces the reliance and pressure on the older adults as participants and ensures their safety prior to testing.

Objective 1.5 Carry out user centred evaluation of prototypes as they become available to the project.
The first purpose of this WP is to identify the needs of the considered classes of users, understand the context in which they operate and delimit the range of activities that the system will enable. The results of this analysis will be matched with the technological options offered by the project and with the market analysis carried out in WP7 resulting into the definition of a set of requirements that will jump-start the system development. The subsequent phases of the WP will consist of a sequence of iterations with the activities of the technological workpackages that will map the user needs on the system design and ensure that each part of the system design matches the capabilities of the users.

WP 2 - Sensing Technologies.

The overall goal of WP2, “Sensing Technologies” is to extract the perceptual information that is required to support all functionalities of the Dali c-Walker platform. More specifically, after considering the results of WP1, “User Centred Design”, WP2 aims at exploring multimodal sensory input to come up with interpretations of the environment that are rich in information content and should determine the behavior of the platform. Additionally, we will also investigate the behaviour of the user with respect to the sensed environment (e.g., showing confusion in a specific situation, behaving in an unexpected manner, etc.) and will analyse the correlation between this behaviour and the stimuli in the environment. The multimodal sensory input from the environment and the sensed user behaviour together with the situation assessment provide input to WP3, “Cognitive Engine” which decides on the action of the platform. At the level of sensors, WP2 considers multiple modalities:
● Round-trip time-of-flight measurements of UWB pulses or CSS signals used for coarse localisation of the platform in its environment.

● Camera systems, used for the visual perception of the immediate surroundings of the platform.

● Haptic sensors available on the platform which together with a camera can sense the behaviour of the user.

WP 3 - Cognitive Engine.

We will develop technologies to provide our system with a robust decision making mechanism that plans the motion of the AP from a source to a destination. The motion is in an environment populated by human agents. The objective is to keep in check the probability of accidents or hazards by offsetting possibly uncooperative behaviours of the AP.

WP 4 - Human/Machine Interface.

The objectives of this WP are:
● To develop a control scheme that allows the c-Walker to convey information about the environment through haptic interfaces, assisting the user to follow a path or to move within a safe area, avoiding actual or potential obstacles;

● To realize prototypes of wearable (fingertip devices, or bracelet or belt) devices, as part of the c-Walker haptic interface, able to provide haptic feedback to the user, developed and realized using a 3D printer;

● To develop an audio/video display to be integrated with the c-Walker; a smart headphone will assist the user with sensing deficiency to reconstruct and understand the surroundings; visual display mounted on the c-Walker will provide environmental information representation;

● To achieve efficient exploitation of the different interfaces presented in this WP;

WP 5 - Architectural Design.

The objectives of this workpackage is to define an architecture for the implementation of the system and a software infrastructure for the seamless interconnection and the real-time execution of the different software components produced in the project.

WP 6 - Integration.

The main goal of this workpackage is to plan, organise and perform an actual deployment of a prototype installation of the system. We will consider several test cases (related to APs with different disabilities). For each of them, we will choose an application scenario. The experimental activity in each of the scenarios will enable us to make a complete technical evaluation and a preliminary user assessment of the technology.

WP 7 - Exploitation Planning & Dissemination. The objectives of this WP are to:
● Disseminate the project research to the scientific community.

● Disseminate the project technical solutions to the e-health community (industry and institutions).

● Disseminate the project results to standardisation bodies.

● Raise public awareness of the project.

● Work out a Business case definition Plan for market requirements.

● Work out a global exploitation plan for the project results. The exploitation plans will include updates of the Business case definition Plan. The final version of the Exploitation Plan will contain also the results of the proof of concept.

● Work out individual exploitation plans for the project participants.

Dissemination will be done at several levels ranging from scientific dissemination to public awareness. Exploitation planning activities will start in month 2 with an early preparation of a Business case Definition in order to point out the relevant market segments that will be taken into account during the lifetime of the project. The exploitation planning activities will also cover the work required to give value to the project results by creating the appropriate business plans to exploit the know-how acquired in the project.

WP 8 - Management.

The objectives of this WP are:
● Ensure and efficiently conduct financial management of the project.

● Coordinate and organise the tasks in each workpackage and the interaction between the workpackages.

● Check the achievement of each step leading towards the final prototypes integration.

● Organise workshops and meetings for cross fertilization (not limited to the consortium partners) and internal evaluation.

● Coordinate the reporting procedures and ensure continuous information exchange with the European Commission Services.