Projects for Lent term 2007
1. Virtual Reality System
Contact: Dr Adar Pelah, Cambridge University Engineering Department
More information: www-sigproc.eng.cam.ac.uk/~jl/index.php
Dr Pelah and his team have developed a virtual reality imaging system which is designed to measure precisely the movements of a person within the field of view, and map these in real time onto a virtual reality landscape. The system can be used with wireless sensors attached to the person, giving maximum accuracy for measurements, or with video cameras.
The system has been designed from a medical perspective, in particular looking at the rehabilitation of stroke victims who find simple tasks such as walking along a straight line very difficult. The screen can display a variety of images, with the person’s current position shown in real time, enabling the same setup to be used for a number of exercises. For example, to practice walking along a straight line, a straight line is shown on the screen with perspective effects, and the person is displayed showing their location in relation to it as they walk on a physical treadmill. Movements can also be recorded for later analysis by physicians, and for review of a patient’s progress over time.
Dr. Pelah originally designed the system in the Physiology Department, and has recently moved to Engineering to combine his work with the software developed by Dr. Joan Lasenby.
A number of student teams will be involved with this research project in the Lent term, including students from Engineering and Medicine. Although each team will have a specific area of focus, it is expected that they will also have the opportunity to interact with each other.
The role of the i-Team will be to identify and investigate a range of possible applications and uses of the system. The team will need to take into account realistic cost constraints of the different market applications, since this system will always be expensive as a result of its requirement for high accuracy. The conclusions are expected to assist the researchers as they develop new versions of the system and progress towards it being used outside of the lab.
2. New methods of manufacturing metal items
Contact: Kathryn Jackson, Institute for Manufacturing
More information: www.ifm.eng.cam.ac.uk/sustainability/projects/incremental.html
Working with Dr. Julian Allwood, Kathryn has been researching new methods of metal manufacturing, using a technique called incremental sheet formation. This allows a wide range of three-dimensional shapes to be created without the need for specialized tooling.
In traditional metal manufacturing techniques, a unique ‘tool’ is created for each item to be manufactured, which is used to create large numbers of the desired object. Such tools can cost tens of thousands of pounds to make, and as such are most appropriate for high volume products. In this environment, having small numbers of prototypes created can also cost thousands of pounds, even for items that will eventually sell for less than £100. It also means that a long lead time is needed before new products can be manufactured, once their design is finalized, and that mistakes in design are costly both in terms of lost time and the costs of having new tools made.
The incremental sheet formation technique allows the lower cost production of one-off and low volume metal items, making it ideal for prototyping of new designs, and for manufacturing items without long set-up times being needed. An ISF machine is in place in the IfM, the first such machine built outside of Japan.
Some previous work has been carried out regarding the areas in which the technique could be usefully applied (see Dr. Julian Allwood et al. A structured search for applications of the incremental sheet-forming process by product segmentation, Proc. IMechE Part B: J. Engineering Manufacture, 219239-244), but the research team is keen to see this work extended to include feedback from real potential users of the method.
The i-Team’s role will be to identify and investigate new markets which could have a real need for the benefits offered by the incremental sheet forming technique, by talking to companies and people with experience of those markets, and gathering feedback on their requirements to enable the researchers to assess if the IfM machine is capable of being configured to match those needs. Possible markets include the manufacture and repair of car parts, the manufacture of custom medical devices (eg ankle supports), and casings for electronic products.
3. Online multimedia collaboration techniques
Contacts: Yiannis Baltopoulos, Computer Lab
JMule is a suite of software for remote collaboration activities, such as distance learning. It was originally developed by a team at Imperial College, London, and at the time received significant commercial interest from a potential licensee.
Unlike the current webconferencing products, such as Microsoft NetMeeting, jMule was designed with an e-learning scenario in mind, with a number of features that make it ideally suited to that environment. The software was carefully designed and documented by the research team, and a functional system created. Features include the ability to annotate images and documents onscreen, view webcam images, and hold public debates and private side conversations. Additional development work would be needed to create a commercial-quality product that could be sold to customers.
The challenge for the i-Team is to investigate the market need for a focused product such as jMule, and identify whether or not the product is worth developing further and taking to a commercial release. The potential market is not expected to be for a generic webconferencing product, since that market is highly competitive with multiple existing solutions, but instead is expected to be for specific niche applications in certain market sectors which the i-Team should identify during the course of their project.