Centre for Cultural and Industrial Technologies Research (CiTech)

The principles of CiTech

The guiding principles of the centre are the:

  • Nurturing and sustaining research excellence throughout our portfolio of Future Proof computing, Intelligent Systems, Biomedical Robotics, Games and Gameplay, Interactive Movement in Virtual Reality Environments, High Performance Computing specialisms.
  • Engaging, enhancing and promoting the research endeavours of our staff and research degree students.
  • Embracing local, national and international agendas to enable our knowledge creation to give economic benefit and encourage creative response.

Under the guidance of these broad principles, activity is focussed in particular areas of implementation.

In order to support researchers in both Cultural and Industrial Technologies, and to allow for consolidation and enhancement of research strengths, activity is grouped under clusters.  The Institute of Industrial Research (IIR) and the Intelligent Systems & Biomedical Robotics Group (ISR) have a strong track record of nationally and internationally funded-research in the industrial / medical arenas. Similarly, the Future Proof Computing Group plays a major role in international digital preservation research, working alongside cultural institutions on nationally and internationally funded projects.  The Games and Gameplay cluster has won international acclaim pushing the boundaries of experimental gameplay, and is leading several nationally-funded projects.  The iMOVE group contributes to the understanding of how altering the virtual environment can influence movement and perception of movement.

 

Future Proof Computing Back to top

Digital Preservation Theory and Practice is at the stage where emulation is starting to be taken seriously as a mainstream strategy alongside migration, to ensure maintainable long-term preservation for cultural institutions first and foremost, but ultimately affecting most areas of society. The Future Proof Computing Group is playing a key role in creating the tools and techniques needed to bring this about, including data modelling for databases and RDF, dimensional modelling for data warehousing, GUI development, and identifying salient legal issues. This work is particularly important for complex digital objects, the creation of whose definitions the group are facilitating in the areas of simulation, visualisations; digital art and computer games.

Projects in this area are:

Staff connected are:

  • Prof. David Anderson
  • Dr Janet Delve
  • Dr Dan Pinchbeck
  • Mr Vaughan Powell

Researchers connected are:

  • Ms Angela Dappert (Digital Preservation Coalition / British Library)

Associated external researchers are:

  • Dr Antonio Ciuffreda
  • Dr Leo Konstantelos
  • Dr Milena Dobreva
  • Mr Clive Billenness (Honorary Visiting Research Fellow)

 

Games and Gameplay Back to top

Research into games falls into two categories. One concerns experimental gameplay and game production, developing and releasing games into the public domain. The core principle is to test new areas of design and gameplay and the viability of these products within the gaming community, both commercially and uncommercially. The second focuses upon locative, mobile and mixed-reality gaming and game design and is more theoretically concerned with the conceptualization and analysis of new gameplay forms and experiences. Projects falling within the games cluster are therefore driven by:

  • Novel game design and new gameplay experiences.
  • Application of theory and analysis to practical implementation.
  • A focus on the business of developing and releasing games.

Projects in this area are:

Staff connected are:

  • Dr Dan Pinchbeck (Reader in Computer Games)
  • Mr Mark Eyles
  • Mr Neil Dansey
  • Mr Gavin Wade
  • Mr Andy Bain

Researchers connected are:

  • Arjan Dhupia
  • Peter Howell
  • Mitu Khandaker

 

Institute of Industrial Research Back to top

The Institute of Industrial Research (IIR) is a specialist research cluster enabling industry and businesses to become more globally competitive through the expert application of Artificial Intelligence (AI). This emerging, multidisciplinary field spans science, engineering, mathematics, psychology and computing to devise computational systems that adapt and learn by interacting with their environments. The IIR specialises in applied AI solutions to industrial problems. These include: 

  •     diagnostics and failure prediction for process machines
  •     embedded intelligence for management systems
  •     image processing for security and surveillance
  •     medical analysis

Organisations are continuously contemplating new ways to develop and evolve. Drawing on existing knowledge and expertise available in the IIR, the wider University or from specifically commissioned research projects, we are able to support and develop your business through the application of an intelligent computing solution.

We provide first-class consultancy services combined with contract research and development work to businesses, and have won contracts to the value of £2,000,000 in the past 3 years. We are always keen to form partnerships with industry to carry out joint projects.

Projects in this area are:

  • Automatic Software to test flight data recorders for airworthiness 
  • Diagnostic System for Dairy Machines 
  • Data Logger for the transportation of Expensive Goods 
  • Diagnostics of Large Data Storage Systems
  • Automatic Diagnostics System for Searching Flight Data
  • Artificial Intelligence for Diagnostics of Electric Vehicles

Staff connected are:

  • Professor David J. Brown
  • Dr Edward Smart
  • Professor Peter Tavner

Researchers connected are:

  • Farshad Fahimi
  • Piyush Goel
  • Xin Wen
  • Bongile Mzenda

Prizes:

  1. The 2010 Knowledge Transfer Partnerships Award for the Best scheme in the SE of England.
  2. Engineering Excellence for Contribution to Knowledge Transfer Partnership, Royal Academy of Engineering, December 2004.
  3. (Best Paper Award), Orthogonal Least Square with Boosting for Regression Modelling, International Conference on Intelligent Data Engineering and Automated Learning December 2004.
  4. Visiting professor HuaZhong University of Science and Technology (Top 5th University in China) July 2006
  5. (Best Session-Presentation), Combining Multi-Frame Images for Enhancement using Self-Delaying Dynamic Networks, IEEE World Congress on Computational Intelligence (IEEE-WCCI), July 16-21 2006, Vancouver, Canada. 
  6. (Best Student Paper Award), Human Arm-Motion Classification Using Qualitative Normalised Templates, 10th International Conference on Knowledge-Based & Intelligent Information & Engineering Systems September 2006, Bournemouth.
  7. Visiting professor, Liaoning Shihua University 1950 School Of Information and Control Engineering No.1 West Dandong Road Wanghua District, Fushun Liaoning, 113001, China Laionang 2007

 

Intelligent Systems & Biomedical Robotics Group (ISR) Back to top

Intelligent Systems and Biomedical Robotics group is focused on computational intelligence and its applications in intelligent systems. Research activities are organised in three such topics as multi-fingered prosthetic sensing and manipulation, vision based human motion analysis, and advanced control theory and application. ISR appreciate financial support from a multiple funding agencies including UK EPSRC, EU FP7, The Royal Society, The Leverhulme Trust, Royal Academy of Engineering, British Council, Chinese Scholarship Council, JSPS and industrial partners. ISR members have published over 200 peer-reviewed international journals and conference papers including three Best Paper Awards and one Best Competition Prize. ISR members have frequently been invited to review international research grants, to give plenary talks, seminars, guest-edit journal issues, and be on leading journal editorial board.

Projects in this area are:

  • Sensing Techniques for Monitoring Morphological Changes of Forearm Muscles
  • Analysing Human Movement via Brain Signals: a Neuroscience Approach
  • Sea Border Surveillance
  • Exploring Human Hand Capabilities into Multifingered Robot Manipulation
  • Design and Control of Active Suspension Systems for In-Wheel Motor
  • Interactive Human Motion Analysis & Synthesis
  • A Software Package for Controlling Prosthetic Hands via EMG based User Manipulation Intention
  • A Unified Framework for Hand Gesture Recognition for Human-Robot Interaction
  • Probabilistic Template-Based Learning Methods for Continuous Human Motion Matching and Its Application to Sports Trainin
  • Vision Based View-Invariant Human Action Recognition via Probabilistic Graphical Models
  • Creation of an Intelligent Search Engine to exact flight safety information from Aircraft Data
  • Fault prognostic diagnosis for ship engines using statistical method
  • Speed Estimation for Intelligent Transportation Systems

Staff connected are:

Researchers connected are:

  • Dr Alexander Kadyrov
  • Dr Xuguang Zhang
  • Mr Nalinda Hettiarchchi
  • Mr Qi Zhou
  • Mr Lim Chern Hong
  • Mr Wei Zeng
  • Mr Yinfeng Fang
  • Mr Louis Dubernet

Associated external researchers are:

  • Dr Gaoxiang Ouyang,
  • Dr Hongyi Li
  • Dr Mehdi Khoury
  • Dr Xiaofeiji
  • Dr Jiangtao Cao
  • Dr Ian Morgan
  • Dr Chee Sen Chan
  • Dr Luke Stutters
  • Dr Xin Wen
  • Dr Edward Smart
  • Dr Donggui Han
  • Dr Josh Fahimi
  • Dr Piyush Goel
  • Dr Lewis Hibell
  • Dr Ping Liu
  • Dr Tianqi Jia
  • Dr Jianjiang Yu
  • Dr Wang Yang
  • Dr Yuhui Shao
  • Mr Geoff Samuel
  • Ms Justine Chavez
  • Mr Guillaume Gordia
  • Mr Mathieu Dutilh
  • Mr Romain Depoivre

 

Interactive Motion in Virtual Environments ( iMoVE ) Back to top

As technology improves and costs fall, Virtual Reality is being increasingly used for a wide variety of applications involving physical interaction with Virtual Environments, including healthcare and rehabilitation, simulation, training and gameplay. The iMoVE research cluster is concerned with how hardware and software mediates these interactive experiences.  Our research is contributing to the understanding of how altering the virtual environment can influence movement and perception of movement, including how some visual and audio properties can influence walking speeds, reaching tasks and perceived self-motion.

Staff connected are:

  • Dr Wendy Powell
  • Mr Vaughan Powell
  • Dr Brett Stevens
  • Dr Emily Bennett
  • Ms Ruiying Wang
  • Dr Steve Hand 
  • Mr Mark Sexton

Researchers connected are:

  • Mr Daniel Tonks 

Digital Storytelling   Back to top

Research activitiy of the Digital Storytelling group falls into four broad categories:

  • Academic papers, books etc (humanities/ social science)
  • Filmmaking/ festivals
  • Art installation/ exhibition/curation 
  • New technologies/ new media and pedagogy

Staff connected are: 

  • Mr Searle Kochberg 
  • Mr Damian Toal
  • Mr Ben Thompson
  • Mr Steve Whitford
  • Mr Paul Charisse
  • Mr Dave Jordan 
  • Dr Yael Friedman
  • Ms Eva Palacios
  • Dr Jackie West
  • Mr Mat Garey
  • Ms Jenn Feray
  • Mr Johnny Lochland
  • Mr David Kinnaird

Technicians connected are:

  • Mr David Kinnaird