UL - Evryon Project

Description of partecipating institution
The Laboratory of Robotics and Biomedical Engineering (http://robo.fe.uni-lj.si) at the Universiy of Ljubljana (www.uni-lj.si) has long-standing excellence in the field of man and machine movement analysis and artificial and natural motor control. The group has wide experience in robotics research, robotic applications, rehabilitation and clinical work. Main topics of theoretical and practical research in the field of rehabilitation are: evaluation of the movements of the upper extremity, novel robotic devices for training of the upper extremities, advanced interactive control of complex rehabilitative devices, training of standing, standing-up, and walking. The excellence of the group can be judged also by the number of publications in peer reviewed journals (56 in the last 5 years), the number of Ph. D. (7 in last 5 years, currently there are 7 Ph.D. students) and M.Sc. projects (7 in last 5 years). Many results have been transferred to clinics, accepted in everyday practice or adopted in the industry. The Laboratory of Robotics and Biomedical Engineering at the UL has established links with other universities in fourteen EU countries, Japan, Swiss and Israel, as well as with commercial enterprises in Slovenia and abroad. The research program “Analysis and synthesis of movement in man and machine” was according to the evaluation of Slovenian research agency placed among five best in the area of engineering in Slovenia in the year 2004 and was in 2008 awarded for duration of next six years based on the scoring superiority. The group has been a partner in the EU funded STREP projects SENSATIONS, GENTLE/S, I-Match and Alladin and now in MIMICS.

Main tasks
UL will be involved in the EVRYON project as WP leader in WP10. Its main RTD tasks will be related to the specifications for the sensory apparatus, its integration into the device and development of a theoretical basis, procedures, and computer algorithms for acquisition, processing (fusion) and interpretation of multi-sensory information arising from the interactions between the human, the robot and the environment.

Expertise
UL is a well-known group for biomedical data processing techniques. More specifically, UL has strong expertise in analysis of kinematic data coming from the human interaction with measuring systems. It possesses not only the expertise, but also the equipment required for measuring human and robot movement in real-time (optical contactless measuring system OPTOTRAK, inertial measuring units, goniometers) and force-sensing equipment enabling measurement of human-robot interaction forces. Several haptic robots with different kinematic structures are available for validation of human-robot interaction algorithms.

Key personnel

Marko MUNIH holds the D.Sc. degree from the FE, UL. In 1995/1996 he has been with University College London. He is now full professor and Head of the Laboratory for Robotics and Biomedical Engineering. In the last five years he was and still is principal investigator of five EU-RTD projects and cooperated in six other projects. In the last 10 years he was supervisor of 8 completed doctoral and more than 60 diploma theses. He is author/coauthor of over 50 peer reviewed scientific publications and four university books. Professor Munih received the national Zois research award in 2002.

Matjaž MIHELJ received the M.Sc. and D.Sc. degrees (1999 and 2002) in electrical engineering from the UL. Since 2009 he has been affiliated as an associate professor. In 2001 he was a visiting researcher at the Sendai University, Japan and from May 2005 till April 2006 he was a visiting researcher at the Automatic Control Lab, ETH Zurich with Marie Curie Intra-European fellowship. The research on the rehabilitation robotics performed at ETH Zurich was awarded with the Swiss Technology Award.

Tadej BAJD received the Dipl. Ing., M.Sc. and D.Sc. degrees from the UL, Slovenia in 1972, 1976, and 1979, respectively. He was a Research Assistant at J. Stefan Institute in Ljubljana (1972-77), a visiting research fellow at the University of Southern California, Los Angeles (1981), and Strathclyde University, Glasgow (1984). Professor Bajd’s bibliography includes more than 100 journal papers. He is a member of Slovenian Academy of Sciences and Arts and Fellow of the IEEE.