ITR: The Virtual Trainer

这是为期三年的持续奖励的第一年资助。“虚拟教练”的目标是创建一种基于计算机的动画，可以互动地教人如何移动。虚拟教练机在最后阶段的硬件要求将是一台配备摄像系统的廉价最先进的个人计算机。虚拟教练员将能够向用户演示动作，监测用户执行这些动作的情况，并在表现不佳的情况下提出纠正建议。虚拟教练将在大量应用中发挥作用，包括运动障碍患者(例如中风患者)的康复、运动和锻炼教育、舞蹈教学和互动娱乐业。此外，为虚拟教练机开发的技术有可能开创机器人控制的新算法，使用“从演示中传授”，有助于开发人类环境的自动监测系统，产生类人计算机模拟，并对生物运动控制和神经系统的功能有新的见解。该项目的研究小组将主要集中于使用虚拟教练器进行运动识别和运动生成的问题，以康复患有上肢和下肢残疾的中风患者。

This is the first year funding of a three-year continuing award. The goal of the "Virtual Trainer" is to create a computer-based animation that can interactively teach how to move. The hardware requirements for the Virtual Trainer in its final stage would be an inexpensive state-of-the-art personal computer equipped with a camera system. The Virtual Trainer will be able to demonstrate movements to its user, monitor the execution of these movements by the user, and suggest corrections in case of inadequate performance. The Virtual Trainer will be useful in a large number of applications, including rehabilitation of movement-impaired patients (e.g., stroke-patients), sport and exercise education, dance instruction, and interactive entertainment industry. Additionally, the technology developed for the Virtual Trainer has the potential to pioneer new algorithms for robot control using "teaching from demonstration", to contribute to the development of automated monitoring systems for human environments, to the generation of humanoid computer simulations, and also to gaining new insights into biological motor control and the functioning of the nervous system. The research team of this project will primarily focus on issues of movement recognition and movement generation with the Virtual Trainer for rehabilitating stroke-impaired patients with upper and lower limb disabilities.