Periodic Reporting for period 3 - See Far (Smart glasses for multifacEted visual loss mitigation and chronic disEase prevention indicator for healthier, saFer, and more productive workplAce foR ageing population)
Reporting period: 2021-12-01 to 2022-05-31
See Far is a digitally enabled adaptive solution supporting ageing workforce with vision deficiencies, an age-related condition, to remain actively involved in professional life, helping them to sustain and renew their work and personal life – related skills and support an independent active and healthy lifestyle. This is a low-cost unobtrusive solution, which ensures the creation of an adaptive smart working and living environment, since it contributes to its four key elements: physical health, ergonomics/environment, technology and management practices.
The See Far solution consists of two main components:
- The See Far smart glasses, that are adapted to the needs of the users and optimize their vision by employing a personalized visual assistant that captures the condition of the eye, detects the problem and provides the appropriate adjustment through the integration of augmented reality technologies.
- The See Far mobile application, which allows monitoring of the central vision evolution and prediction of the risk for the presence of diseases (e.g. diabetes risk, cardiovascular risk). It will capture retinal images, through a digital direct ophthalmoscope attached to the smartphone, analyse them, and estimate the type and the stage of vision impairment, by employing machine learning techniques.
The combination of the output of the See Far mobile application (indicator of the presence of a visual problem, or not), with that of the See Far smart glasses (type of daily visual issues the user has and his/her behaviour), will lead to the provision of suggestions/assistance, through augmented reality, to the user, supporting an independent, active and healthy lifestyle. The suggestions/assistance provided will be adapted to the profile of the user, through the personalised visual recommendation service. A combination of state-of-the-art techniques from the fields of computer vision, augmented reality and artificial intelligence will be employed in order to achieve the challenging objectives of the See Far Project.
The See Far solution consists of two main components:
- The See Far smart glasses, that are adapted to the needs of the users and optimize their vision by employing a personalized visual assistant that captures the condition of the eye, detects the problem and provides the appropriate adjustment through the integration of augmented reality technologies.
- The See Far mobile application, which allows monitoring of the central vision evolution and prediction of the risk for the presence of diseases (e.g. diabetes risk, cardiovascular risk). It will capture retinal images, through a digital direct ophthalmoscope attached to the smartphone, analyse them, and estimate the type and the stage of vision impairment, by employing machine learning techniques.
The combination of the output of the See Far mobile application (indicator of the presence of a visual problem, or not), with that of the See Far smart glasses (type of daily visual issues the user has and his/her behaviour), will lead to the provision of suggestions/assistance, through augmented reality, to the user, supporting an independent, active and healthy lifestyle. The suggestions/assistance provided will be adapted to the profile of the user, through the personalised visual recommendation service. A combination of state-of-the-art techniques from the fields of computer vision, augmented reality and artificial intelligence will be employed in order to achieve the challenging objectives of the See Far Project.
As a result of the work carried out during the project:
- The See Far system has been designed and developed, and a working prototype (corresponding to an intermediate stage in the natural course of technical development) has been built and tested with patients.
- The combination of different specialized profiles (particularly clinical and technical) has proved to be an efficacious scheme.
- The prototype of the See Far solution has been tested in two hospitals (in Spain and Denmark) and the information obtained has been used to further improve the device and to perform a first evaluation of the potential of the solution.
- From an engineering point of view, a powerful platform (based on COTS components) has been successfully developed that can evolve and that can be used to create functionalities based on its features, both for clinical application and for any other field of application. A complete working prototype has been proved in a real environment, achieving a technology maturity level close to TRL06.
- The See Far system consists of many components and subsystems. Their development has led to progress in the state of the art in several areas. For example, artificial intelligence algorithms for the detection and evaluation retina pathologies or for the estimation the cognitive workload. So far, the See Far project has been presented at 12 scientific or professional conferences or events and 16 scientific publications have been produced.
- From a clinical perspective, the See Far solution shows potential for providing help to the visual impaired ageing workers, mainly through visual aids (filtering, magnification, etc.) and through remote monitoring of the retina. The solution shows potential for specific difficulties (e.g. colour blindness) rather than as a general purpose aid, and it is not likely to outperform existing solutions for other specific difficulties (e.g. presbyopia). Being a platform, it is easy to devise new functionalities for visual impaired people.
- The evaluation of the user acceptance shows that they find it usable, innovative and stimulating,
- Employers recognize the growing interest in this kind of tools as retirement age increases.
- The See Far solution effectively addresses the challenge of an aging workforce in Europe and can create a relevant socio-economic impact (costs of health care system, number accidents in workplace, productivity, quality of life, quality of work environment, etc.)
- The See Far system has been designed and developed, and a working prototype (corresponding to an intermediate stage in the natural course of technical development) has been built and tested with patients.
- The combination of different specialized profiles (particularly clinical and technical) has proved to be an efficacious scheme.
- The prototype of the See Far solution has been tested in two hospitals (in Spain and Denmark) and the information obtained has been used to further improve the device and to perform a first evaluation of the potential of the solution.
- From an engineering point of view, a powerful platform (based on COTS components) has been successfully developed that can evolve and that can be used to create functionalities based on its features, both for clinical application and for any other field of application. A complete working prototype has been proved in a real environment, achieving a technology maturity level close to TRL06.
- The See Far system consists of many components and subsystems. Their development has led to progress in the state of the art in several areas. For example, artificial intelligence algorithms for the detection and evaluation retina pathologies or for the estimation the cognitive workload. So far, the See Far project has been presented at 12 scientific or professional conferences or events and 16 scientific publications have been produced.
- From a clinical perspective, the See Far solution shows potential for providing help to the visual impaired ageing workers, mainly through visual aids (filtering, magnification, etc.) and through remote monitoring of the retina. The solution shows potential for specific difficulties (e.g. colour blindness) rather than as a general purpose aid, and it is not likely to outperform existing solutions for other specific difficulties (e.g. presbyopia). Being a platform, it is easy to devise new functionalities for visual impaired people.
- The evaluation of the user acceptance shows that they find it usable, innovative and stimulating,
- Employers recognize the growing interest in this kind of tools as retirement age increases.
- The See Far solution effectively addresses the challenge of an aging workforce in Europe and can create a relevant socio-economic impact (costs of health care system, number accidents in workplace, productivity, quality of life, quality of work environment, etc.)
Progress beyond the state of the art
- See Far smart glasses combine the advantages and the functionalities of the available in the market products or prototypes and moves one step forward since it will be an unobtrusive, adaptive solution for age-friendly living and working environments, addressing the needs of employees with vision deficiencies in any sector and workplace.
- See Far smart glasses will provide personalized feedback and support due to the personalized profile mechanism. They will recognize the time and the type of the support that the user needs (Intelligent component) and they will activate the Personalized visual assistant, Personalized recommendation service and or Embedded navigation system, accordingly.
- See Far mobile application will extend the D-EYE Portable Retinal Imaging System in order to allow, not only mobile recording of retina images, but also the analysis of these images and the detection and prognosis of different retina diseases. State of the art machine learning techniques will be employed in the existing system in order the specific objective to be achieved.. See Far mobile application will be an innovative, non-invasive, user friendly, convenient and ergonomic, portable, monitoring, diagnostic and prognostic tool.
- See Far solution will allow the prediction of different impairments through the analysis of retina images received by a portable ophthalmic camera attached to the Smartphone of the user.
- See Far solution will utilize the above mentioned behavior modeling techniques and it will focus on the fusion of the dynamic and heterogeneous sources of information that will be recorded.
- See Far visual recommendation service, taking into consideration the personalized profile of the user and his/her behavior will motivate the user to adopt behaviors that allow him/her to remain actively involved in professional life, to sustain and renew their work and personal life related skills and support independent active and healthy lifestyles.
Expected impacts
- Independent living, and quality of life of older persons compared to current state of the art, enabling older persons to stay actively involved in work life for longer or return to work after severe disease.
- Enhanced health and safety working conditions and quality of life of older persons at work compared to the current situation, enabling older persons to be able to contribute for a longer period of time.
- Evidence of user-centred design, new ways of human-computer interaction, and user acceptance.
- Potential cost-effectiveness due to enhanced self-care, life-style, age-friendly and skills conducive work environments
- Competitive advantage for European industry through flexible and sustainable work arrangements for an ageing workforce. and socio-economic benefits.
- Global leadership in ICT for active and healthy ageing including the occupational environment.
- See Far smart glasses combine the advantages and the functionalities of the available in the market products or prototypes and moves one step forward since it will be an unobtrusive, adaptive solution for age-friendly living and working environments, addressing the needs of employees with vision deficiencies in any sector and workplace.
- See Far smart glasses will provide personalized feedback and support due to the personalized profile mechanism. They will recognize the time and the type of the support that the user needs (Intelligent component) and they will activate the Personalized visual assistant, Personalized recommendation service and or Embedded navigation system, accordingly.
- See Far mobile application will extend the D-EYE Portable Retinal Imaging System in order to allow, not only mobile recording of retina images, but also the analysis of these images and the detection and prognosis of different retina diseases. State of the art machine learning techniques will be employed in the existing system in order the specific objective to be achieved.. See Far mobile application will be an innovative, non-invasive, user friendly, convenient and ergonomic, portable, monitoring, diagnostic and prognostic tool.
- See Far solution will allow the prediction of different impairments through the analysis of retina images received by a portable ophthalmic camera attached to the Smartphone of the user.
- See Far solution will utilize the above mentioned behavior modeling techniques and it will focus on the fusion of the dynamic and heterogeneous sources of information that will be recorded.
- See Far visual recommendation service, taking into consideration the personalized profile of the user and his/her behavior will motivate the user to adopt behaviors that allow him/her to remain actively involved in professional life, to sustain and renew their work and personal life related skills and support independent active and healthy lifestyles.
Expected impacts
- Independent living, and quality of life of older persons compared to current state of the art, enabling older persons to stay actively involved in work life for longer or return to work after severe disease.
- Enhanced health and safety working conditions and quality of life of older persons at work compared to the current situation, enabling older persons to be able to contribute for a longer period of time.
- Evidence of user-centred design, new ways of human-computer interaction, and user acceptance.
- Potential cost-effectiveness due to enhanced self-care, life-style, age-friendly and skills conducive work environments
- Competitive advantage for European industry through flexible and sustainable work arrangements for an ageing workforce. and socio-economic benefits.
- Global leadership in ICT for active and healthy ageing including the occupational environment.