Welcome to MCRLab

At the Multimedia Communications Research Lab, we adopted the vision of Human-Centred Research: "i have aims" meaning: interactive Hapto-Audio-Visual Environments for Ambient Intelligent Media Systems.

Mulimedia Security (Watermarking) and Tele-Surveillance

The rapid growth of digital techniques makes it possible to create many new multimedia communication services such as teleconferencing, video on demand, direct broadcasting satellite, and HDTV, which creates an increasing need for video/image quality metrics. Our goal is to develop an objective quality measurement framework that works as an automatic quality monitoring system in a digital television network by using digital watermarking.

Multimedia Knowledge Management

The proposed framework will be crucial to deliver multimedia content dynamically and automatically depending on user preferences including cultural background, knowledge, and device profile. In the proposed approach, each software component, such as the transcoding component (i.e. to transcode a tiff image into png.) and the presentation component (i.e. to adapt the user interface layer to cultural backgroud) will be developed as an autonomous web service, which performs a specific function towards the success of the content personalization task.

Multimedia Collaborative Environments

Recent developments in decentralized network architecture (peer-to-peer or P2P) and in service-oriented architecture (SOA) are creating new opportunities in terms of the types of products offered, and in the way these are delivered. P2P is a network architecture whereby each participant can be a client as well as a server. The characteristics of P2P are scalability and robustness, which can be harnessed to create a P2P network in order to provide a service, from file sharing to telephony (Skype)...

Haptics, E-Touch and Sensory Multimedia

Multiple disciplines such as biomechanics, psychophysics, robotics, neuroscience, and software engineering converge to support haptics. Generally, haptic research can be organized into three communities: the robotics community, the human computer interface community, and the virtual reality community. We look at haptics as a new media. We research general principles in haptics, fundamental concepts in human haptic perception, haptic and graphic rendering, Tele-haptics, applications, etc...

IT Security & Biometrics

Multiple disciplines such as biomechanics, psychophysics, robotics, neuroscience, and software engineering converge to support haptics. Generally, haptic research can be organized into three communities: the robotics community, the human computer interface community, and the virtual reality community. We look at haptics as a new media. We research general principles in haptics, fundamental concepts in human haptic perception, haptic and graphic rendering, Tele-haptics, applications, etc...

Enhancing Haptic experience

Recent advances in man-machine interaction, telerobotics, telepresence and teleaction have shown that introducing the haptic modality to multimedia applications has the power to significantly widen their application range and to dramatically improve the user experience. Especially, the human body surface has been considered as an additional means of presenting information using vibrotactile display devices. In this context, spatial displacement of a vibrotactile stimulus can be deployed for information display...

Evaluating the Quality of Experience of Haptic-Audio-Visual Applications

Project Summary Haptic-based Virtual Reality (VR) applications have many merits. What is still obscure, from the designer’s perspective of these applications, is the experience the users will undergo when they use the VR system. Quality of Experience (QoE) is an evaluation metric from the user’s perspective that we seek to measure in this project...

Ambient Intelligence for Reducing Power Consuption

Using artificial intelligence, a computer could monitor electricity usage within a home and schedule certain household tasks for when electricity usage is low. These tasks could include running the dishwasher, cooling the fridge, heating the hot water tank, running the laundry or drying machine...

Context-aware Personal Heart Monitoring System

The emergence of wireless biomedical sensors and the adoption of cellular smartphones have enabled a new generation of cardiac monitoring systems for the remote follow-up of patients after discharge from hospital. The system is capable of personalized cardiac monitoring by learning about the patient's normal vital signs and then automatically detecting any non-normal heart beats and rhythms; an alarm is then sent to the hospital...