Other SmartLabs in the world

In this section, we will show other SmartLabs located around the world. Nowdays, there are a wide number of ambient intelligence laboratories in the world, each one of them has different chracteristics and goals.

SMART ENVIRONMET - ULSTER UNIVERSITY

It’s located inside the School of Computing and Mathematics on the Jordanstown campus. It is composed of a series of workspaces dedicated to the study of intelligent environments. The SERG group (Smart Environment Research Group) has the goal of reaching through a multidisciplinary research the advancement to support and supervise people within their home and beyond. This center has 4 laboratories with intelligent environments; each one has a size of 17 square meters, and currently this research group has five main themes as research activity:

  1. Wereable computer
  2. Autonomic computing
  3. Processing and displaying of vital signs
  4. Behaviour movement and analysis
  5. Mathematical modeling

External Link: SMART ENVIRONMET

CEAPAT-IMSERSO

The State Reference Centre for Personal Autonomy and Technical Aid (CEAPAT), belonging to the IMSERSO, has developed a laboratory equipped with accessible technologies to facilitate daily house chores. This center is located in Madrid, although it has some delegations located in Cadiz, Albacete and Salamanca.

  • Achieve universal accessibility as much in the housing areas and as in environments and spaces, products, equipment and services.
  • Implement a design culture for all people.
  • Facilitate digital interaction.
  • Assure the active participation and interaction of users and all agents.
  • Assist the development, knowledge and application of legal and technical regulations.
  • Promote R&D in terms of accessibility, design, products and services.
  • Offer information, advice, evaluation and training, usefully managing knowledge.
  • Participate in national and international platforms and forums and facilitate the coordination between the different agents.

External Link: CEAPAT

Living Lab Social - Ageing_Lab

Living Lab Social in Real Environments (Living Lab) of the Ageing_Lab foundation offers a complete and direct service providing customized solutions, in both for research projects, and for the development and innovation of products or services that solve the challenge of Aging.

Living Lab is an instrument that allows the active participation of the end user, from its own reality, in the process of design or redesign of projects, products and services, as well as in the pilot phases.

  • Objetives:
    • Test, validate, make prototypes, and polish complex solutions in constantly evolving real environments, taking part multiple factors not known in traditional studies.
    • Allow the adaptation of products and services to the real needs of the end user.
    • Study the older person in his real environment, with a high level of observation.

  • Services:
    • Field work development for R&D projects through the complete management of the participation of the end user.
    • Testing and validation of products and services for older people.
    • Study of needs and attitudes prior to the design of new products and services.

External Link: AGEING_LAB

INCLUSIVE DESIGN RESEARCH CENTRE - UCD DUBLIN

Established in December 2013, and building upon the move of the SMARTlab team to Dublin with Professor Lizbeth Goodman in September 2010, the new IDRC provides the national and international framework for interdisciplinary expertise to deliver on major research programmes in Research, Policy and Practice for Inclusive Design, including Assistive Technologies for People with Intellectual and other abilities and disabilities. The Centre will be a national resource as well as a main hub of expertise for Europe, to act as a central research support unit to host funded Post-Doc fellows, PhD and MA students. The Centre will host a major showcase space where researchers, industry collaborators, clinicians and clients including people with disabilities can work and play together, to achieve new insights into the needs of people of all levels of functionality (intellectual and physical). The Centre will link to the SMARTlab’s Assistive Technology and Multimodal Interfaces equipment and programmes (including the country’s most sophisticated eye control interface systems) and the SMARTlab’s Virtual World and Games for Learning services already as established at UCD, and to the partner labs and centres in London, Toronto and Seattle.

IDRC is a resource for named chairs and professionals in the health sciences and human sciences, as well as in the development of information technologies and industries that support these fields. The Centre will generate a required additional research capacity for a variety of disciplines, to act as a center of excellence for the collection and preservation of best practice digital files in this important field.

External Link: INCLUSIVE DESIGN RESEARCH CENTRE

SENIORLAB

The SeniorLab project is an initiative of Citilab-Cornellá, the i2cat Foundation, the University of Barcelona and the University of the Gent Gran of Cornellá with the purpose of getting value to the experience and ideas of older people in the framework of the Knowledge Society. The SeniorLab laboratory is located in Barcelona and is composed by a team over 50 people, professionals and researchers. The initial hypothesis of the project is that older people can contribute in an innovative way to the design and construction of the knowledge society, the digital society, providing their experience and memory.

Among the objectives of the SeniorLab we can find:

  • Carry out R&D activities in the ICT field with special emphasis on digital media and products. These activities must emphasize creativity, life quality and welfare of the human being.
  • Create a network that facilitates collaboration and exchange of experience between the academic world, industry and society.
  • Achieve a team of researchers of excellence by transferring knowledge from main researchers of the Institute and international renowned researchers.
  • Noticeably improve the relationships of private companies with the public sector.
  • Commercialize R&D results.
  • Develop strategies between industry and public administration.

External Link: SENIORLAB