Augmented Reality for an Active Ageing European Society

By Hannes Kaufman

Augmented Reality (AR) per definition combines the real and the virtual and is interactive in real-time. In addition, virtual and real objects are registered in 3-D space to pinpoint their positions for precise overlays. AR has been in the news a lot in recent years, mainly because of AR Apps on smartphones. AR has a lot more to offer though.

Hardware setups are versatile and range from mobile devices to immersive lab installations. Just as versatile are the application areas ranging from industrial uses (automotive, manufacturing, etc.), training and education, modeling (architectural planning), design, visualization (scientific, medical, information), entertainment and more recently, the widening spectrum of possibilities in the medical domain, rehabilitation and therapy.

The most visible area of research in AR in recent years has been localization. Tracking the positions of persons and objects in 3-D as accurately as possible in indoor and outdoor environments is the challenge here. Vision-based solutions, in combination with additional available sensors, deliver the best and most promising results these days.

In Europe we have a strong research community working on AR in a wide range of application areas. In order to pursue interesting and promising new application ideas, especially in the medical domain which is one of our priorities, funding is always critical. In most European countries we rely mainly on three sources of funding: (1) National basic and applied research funding institutions, (2) the European Union Framework Programme and (3) industry. Due to the economic situation, the national funding programs are about to be cut.

However, faced with an ageing European society and with hardly a country exempt from problems financing pensions and healthcare, the European Commission seems to be taking a different route by investing in research and driving innovation forward.

In the current Framework Programme 7 (FP7), the European Union is funding health research in the amount of ¤ 6.1 billion. Within FP7, the “ICT Challenge 5: Information and Communication Technologies for Health, Ageing Well, Inclusion and Governance” has a budget of ¤ 258 million. This sum for health research will be topped in the years 2014- 2020 in HORIZON 2020, the new name for the upcoming framework program. There will also be funding opportunities for cooperations with neighboring, industrialized and emerging economies. In HORIZON 2020, ¤ 9.07 billion are reserved for “Health, demographic change, and well-being.” This brings interesting opportunities for the AR community.

FP7 and HORIZON cover many topics the AR/VR community is currently working on. As an example, I would like to mention an FP7 project on virtual rehabilitation in which we participated. The PLAYMANCER FP7 ICT Project focused on developing serious games for cognitive behavioral therapy – specifically for patients with eating disorders and pathological gambling – and on serious games for the rehabilitation of chronic back pain patients.

Rehabilitation for chronic pain follows a multidisciplinary approach, which despite the effort, often lacks long term success. Patients fail to translate skills learned in therapy to everyday life. In order to encourage continuous training and ensure impact at a wider scale when it comes to “Active Ageing,” technology can and should be used to motivate people to exercise at home.

As an alternative home motion capture system, the low cost Microsoft Kinect was compared to our eight-camera precise motion capture system. The purpose of this comparison within the project was that recorded movement data could provide medical experts with useful information regarding patients’ home training such as duration, intensity and correctness.

Overall, the Kinect works surprisingly well. It correctly captured some of the exercises used within our serious game. It cannot measure all required parameters (e.g., head rotations cannot be detected) and lacks accuracy required for others (e.g., velocities of hand/arm movement). For clinical evaluation such a device cannot be recommended due to large errors. However, for health related home use, a Kinect-like depth camera can be used as a full body input device for serious games and other rehab or health programs that do not need supervision.

To reach the general public, using mobile technologies for healthcare purposes seems to have the broadest impact. MIT’s CATRA and EyeNETRA projects are perfect examples. AR is predestined to contribute in these areas as well. Regarding mobile and upcoming technologies for elderly people, excellent usability must be of utmost importance. We will see a variety of new approaches and health technologies emerging until the end of this decade. With the excellent funding opportunities on the horizon, we should take our chances to develop and spread successful medical applications based on virtual, augmented and mixed reality.

For more information on the mentioned projects visit:

HORIZON 2020 – A Short Overview (http://www.ostina.org/content/view/615 3/1567/)

International Funding in HORIZON 2020 (http://ec.europa.eu/research/horizon2020/ pdf/press/fact_sheet_on_interna t iona l_p a r t i c ip a t ion_in_hor i – zon_2020.pdf )

HORIZON 2020 – Health, demographic change and well-being (http://www.nhsconfed. org/NationalAndInternational/NHSEuropeanOffice/ Innovation_EU_funding/Pag es/Horizon2020.aspx)

Schönauer C., Pintaric T., Kaufmann H., Jansen-Kosterink S., Vollenbroek M.Chronic Pain Rehabilitation with a Serious Game using Multimodal Input In Proceedings of Virtual Rehabilitation 2011, Zurich, June 2011. CATRA (http://web.media.mit.edu/~pamplona/ CATRA/)

EyeNetra (http://eyenetra.com/)

Hannes Kaufmann, Ph.D.                                                                                             Vienna University of Technology Austria                                     kaufmann@ims.tuwien.ac.at