University of Twente

The University of Twente (UT) employs 3,300 staff and has 9,000 students. It is part of the 4TU federation together with the technical universities of Eindhoven, Delft and Wageningen. The CTIT (Centre for Telematics and Information Technology) of the University of Twente is one of the largest academic ICT research institutes in Europe with over 475 researchers. A clear focus of CTIT is the integration of technology-based research and its application in specific domains. The Human Media Interaction (HMI) group is a part of the Computer Science Department and consists of about 10 staff and 20 PhD students. The focus of the group is on intelligent multimodal human technology interaction. HMI has a proven track record of participating in several multidisciplinary EU research projects (e.g., AMI and its successor AMIDA, SEMAINE, SSPNET, MESH, MediaCampaign, FROG, ACCOMPANY, SPENCER, SQUIRREL and EASEL.

Coordinator:       

Team members:

Objectives and tasks:

  • DE-ENIGMA Perception
    • To focus in robust, context-sensitive and real time machine analysis of facial, bodily and vocal cues in unconstrained recording conditions that are atypical and abruptly changing as caractheristic for children with autism.
      1. Environmentally robust, personalised facial features
  • DE-ENIGMA Database collection, annotation and release
    • To collect and release of a publicly available benchmark multilingual dataset of annotated facial, bodily, vocal and verbal recordings of interactions between children with autism and their counterpartners (therapist, robot, parent).
      1. DE-ENIGMA data acquisition
  • DE-ENIGMA Integration and Evaluation
    • To specify the functional requirements, interactions and constraints of DE-ENIGMA: construct the integrated DE-ENIGMA platform and assess the impact DE-ENIGMA skill training compared to traditional therapies on autistic children’s socio-emotional skills.
      1. Specifications of functional requirements, interactions and constraints
      2. Construction and integration of the DE-ENIGMA platform
      3. Assess the impact of robot-assisted socio-emotional skill training compared to traditional therapies to develop autistic children’s socio-emotional skills across cultures
      4. Final evaluation of the integrated DE-ENIGMA system
  • DE-ENIGMA Reasoning
    • This objective addresses the problem of automatic reasoning  about behavioural patterns of the child as observed in unconstrained recordings of facial, vocal/verbal and bodily expressions, and based on the features extracted in the objective “DE-ENIGMA Perception”.
      1. Multi-Modal Rapport recognition
  • DE-ENIGMA Robot-Child Interaction
    • To understand the context of use for the DE-ENIGMA system and the design and development of the DE-ENIGMA interactive game to engage autistic children in developing socio-emotional skills
      1. Understanding of the needs of children with autism in learning socio-emotional skills
      2. Design and realisation of interactive game for training socio-emotional skills
      3. Controlled studies into effective robots behaviours
  • DE-ENIGMA Dissemination, Communication and Exploitation
    1. To create public, scientific and industrial awareness of the project achievements. Dissemination and exploitation activities will be performed in strict relation with all the technical activities
      1. Dissemination strategy
      2. DE-ENIGMA project website
      3. R&D output publications and conference participation
      4. Management of interactions with other EU projects
  1. DE-ENIGMA Management
    • To implement all technical, financial and administrative aspects of the project plan to ensure that it is executed in fulfillment of the contract with the European Commission.
      1. Project leadership and coordination
      2. Administrative and financial management
      3. Quality assurance and risk management
      4. Preparation for review of progress

DRIENERLOLAAN 5
7522 NB ENSCHEDE
The Netherlands