ITR: The Virtual Trainer

这是一个为期三年的连续奖励的第一年资助。“虚拟教练”的目标是创建一个基于计算机的动画，可以交互式地教如何移动。 虚拟训练器在最后阶段的硬件要求是一台价格低廉、配备摄像系统的最先进的个人计算机。虚拟训练器将能够向其用户演示动作，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。 虚拟训练器将在大量应用中有用，包括运动障碍患者的康复（例如，中风患者）、运动和锻炼教育、舞蹈指导和互动娱乐业。 此外，为虚拟训练器开发的技术有可能开创使用“演示教学”的机器人控制新算法，为人类环境自动监控系统的开发做出贡献，生成人形计算机模拟，并获得对生物运动控制和神经系统功能的新见解。本项目的研究团队将主要集中在运动识别和运动生成的问题与虚拟训练器，用于康复中风患者的上下肢残疾。

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.