BackProjects of perception
Mint takes a look at 8 projects under the centre's National Program on Perception Engineering in partnership with research institutes including C-DAC and IITs
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An algorithm, in the simplest form, is a step-by-step procedure to execute a certain action. When written in software code that is understood by machines, it can be turned into a tool to control and manipulate them. The government has been running various projects under its National Program on Perception Engineering in partnership with research institutes including Centre for Development of Advanced Computing (C-DAC) and Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs) which explore and experiment with algorithms to develop systems that either have human-like perception and cognitive abilities or are designed to understand the human perception and cognition processes. Mint takes a quick look at seven such ongoing projects.
1. Perception based 3D Telepresence: IIT Delhi is working on a project to develop 3D telepresence system based on the human perception and attention mechanisms. It aims to create a low-cost system that will turn a simple two-dimension (2-D) video conferencing experience into a three-dimension (3-D) tele-conferencing or telepresence. Unlike a hologram, which actually creates a three-dimensional image and is quite expensive, this technology will exploit human perception to create a 3D illusion from a 2D transmission and communication system.
2. Brain machine interface: The project, under way in IIT Delhi, looks at developing a technology that will enable brain waves to control interfacing devices including robotic manipulators such as prosthetic arms or legs. The system will work on an algorithm that will convert brain vibrations or input from an electroencephalogram (EEG), which evaluates the electrical activity in the brain (brain cells communicate with each other through electrical impulses) and send it to robotic parts to control them.
3. Embedded system for low cost haptic rendering of emotion expressions to the blind: A project is underway at the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research-Central Electronics Engineering Research Institute which aims to enable blind people to feel the emotions of the person they are talking to through haptic rendering, a technique that allows users to feel virtual objects in a simulated environment by recreating the sense of touch through vibrations or motions to the user. The system will capture an image of the face of a person and extract an expression out of that image through an algorithm that will then communicate the feedback to the visually impaired through different frequencies. The sequence of frequencies will then enable a visually impaired person to understand the emotions of surrounding people.
4. Perception based research in speech, handwriting: Research is going on in C-DAC, Kolkata to develop a model to recognize the emotions of a person by analyzing speech. This means a perception technology-based machine would be able to read emotions of a person from his speech. The project also explores the idea of building a perception-based decision support system to detect deception or lies. Here, automatic handwriting behaviour analysis will be done depending upon the pressure points and other features of hand-writing strokes.
5. Algorithms for speech training : IIT Bombay is working on a project that is looking to develop an algorithm for improving speech intelligibility, a measure of how comprehensible speech is or the degree to which speech can be understood, in real time. It also uses a haptic system to assess motor disorders—disorders of the nervous system that cause abnormal and involuntary movements—and estimates shape of the vocal tract, the air passages above the larynx used in the production of speech.
6. Protocol for robotic teams: A team of experts from IIT Delhi is developing a protocol—a defined set of instructions—for making robots socially interactive and cooperative in a situation where robot teams are required to be deployed for disaster management. This model will have co-operation and co-ordination protocol along with software and hardware implementation.
7. Cognitive, psychosocial and neuropsychological model: Researchers in IIT Delhi along with CSIR-CEERI, Pilani and Jadavpur University working on a model to understand cognitive, perception and reasoning processes and emotional states of a human mind to explore the possibility of creating technology solutions in field like health. For instance, by understanding how a human mind perceives something, more appealing solutions can be built for the visually impaired to let them feel their surroundings.
8. Games based on human behaviour models for army/military and police training: Based on human behaviour models, the International Institute of Information Technology (IIIT), Hyderabad, is working on a project to develop games that will help military and police forces to train for handling critical situations. To make it more effective, the underlying algorithms focus on collaborative mapping and exploration with an emphasis on searching for and detection of objects during the game.
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