3D Community Aware Virtual Spaces as Smart Living Environments for Physical Activity and Rehabilitation

Project Information

VR2Care

Grant agreement ID: 951978

DOI

10.3030/951978

Project closed

EC signature date 21 December 2021

Start date 1 January 2022

End date 30 June 2024

Funded under

• INDUSTRIAL LEADERSHIP - Leadership in enabling and industrial technologies - Information and Communication Technologies (ICT)

Total cost

€ 2 279 437,50

EU contribution

€ 1 968 918,75

Coordinated by

INESC TEC - INSTITUTO DE ENGENHARIADE SISTEMAS E COMPUTADORES, TECNOLOGIA E CIENCIA
Portugal

Periodic Reporting for period 2 - VR2Care (3D Community Aware Virtual Spaces as Smart Living Environments for Physical Activity and Rehabilitation)

Reporting period: 2023-01-01 to 2024-06-30

Summary of the context and overall objectives of the project

VR2Care breaks the current VR paradigm in smart living environments by enabling a multi-user mixed reality service, available for embodied exercising group in different physical locations at the same time and with expert exercise supervision. Motivation is empowered in VR2Care by a social commitment. A social experience of several people sharing difficulties and fighting isolation, replaces the “the patient/user and the application” paradigm, and the gamified entertainment experiences.
VR2Care aims to create age-friendly virtual environments fostering the use of interactive technologies for the promotion of physical activity and social interaction. The practice of physical activity and training are performed in a realistic multi-user virtual reality environment, where users are represented with real human forms, and with animations synchronised with natural movements (embodiment) and multimodal interactions combining voice, gestures and body movement. The environment also provides monitoring and guidance of physical activity by smart virtual assistant that combine artificial intelligence with direct human manipulation, according to the needs of each intervention allowing a multiple set of activities, from functional training to rehabilitation. The VR2Care platform is a unique environment for physical activity, training and rehabilitation which provides intelligent interfaces in a multiuser environment. It combines virtual reality technologies for supervised exercise with natural interaction techniques, by enhancing socialisation with the practice of physical activity.
The three major objectives of VR2Care project are:
1. To integrate technological, clinical, and social perspectives of using interactive technologies, ensuring that the VR2Care platform is innovative while also extending our scientific understanding and practice- based experiments of engaging the community for active and healthy ageing with physical activity and exercise.
2. To develop, implement and validate the VR2Care platform that leverages cutting-edge approaches including a multi-user virtual reality environment, natural interaction, pervasive monitoring of physical activity and smart virtual assistants, to produce a platform that is usable, adaptable, extendable and sustainable.
3. To explore and measure the level of engagement, effectiveness, and impact that the VR2Care platform has on older adults in the areas of physical activity and social interaction, validating this through small scale pilots involving a community of stakeholders in Europe, and providing an exploitation and business plan for the platform adoption.

Work performed from the beginning of the project to the end of the period covered by the report and main results achieved so far

VR2Care requirements gathered during the 1st period under WP2 and described in D2.1 and D2.2 were the key to design the system-of-systems architecture for the VR2Care digital ecosystem. Under WP3 a system-of-systems was design and implemented with the ultimate goal of creating an environment to allow [..] realistic multi-user virtual reality sessions, where users are represented with real human forms, and with animations synchronised with natural movements (embodiment) and multimodal interactions combining voice, gestures and body movement. As documented on D3.5 and D3.7 VR2Care architecture brings together REHABILITY, SmartAL, cogvis.ai and the VR2Care MUE providing an holistic environment for home based exercise training.
The adoption of the system started during the first period with the iterative testing task of WP2 and the training of the professionals in preparation for the pilots. The methodology and lessons learned have been documented under D2.4 and D2.5.
VR2Care […] technology was deployed in four running demonstrators that supported the project pilots in three locations across the EU: Portugal, Netherlands and Italy. Under WP4 the pilot studies have been conducted (T4.3) and the statistical analysis of the collected data have been reported (D4.6) and submitted for publication (D4.7). Users’ enrolment was also documented under the final report on enrolment and data collection (D4.5).
From a business perspective, VR2Care opens up a global market to deliver services and products to customers, where distances between provider and customer disappear. Business opportunities go beyond the technological and technical companies, expanding challenges for the AAL ecosystem including companies such as broadcasters, architects, therapists, training and education institutions to deliver at any place trainings, advices and design. The exploitation activities carried out under WP5, include the identification of current similar projects, under an emerging market empowered by the fast grow of the metaverse. Several plenary and bilateral discussion sessions have been conducted for the creation of an exploitation plan, as reported in D5.2. The exploitation plan (D5.3) was developed with the support of Horizon Results Booster services.
A large number of dissemination and communication activities have been organized under WP6. Participation in major fairs and events on Active and Healthy Ageing, including as Ageing Fit 2023 and 2024, in Lille – France, SilverEco Festival in Cannes, IFA World Congress 2023 in Bangkok, and 10th China International Elderly Care Service Industry Expo in Beijing. On VR exhibitions, VR2Care was present at Stereopsia 2022 and 2024. The project was also presented in scientific conferences as Hamburg at CHI 2023 and iMeta 2023. The VR2Care Final conference took place in June 2024 and brought together the Active and Healthy Ageing community as well as the Virtual Worlds and Web 4.0 during 2 days at Porto.

Progress beyond the state of the art and expected potential impact (including the socio-economic impact and the wider societal implications of the project so far)

The concept of VR2Care emerged from a need for home care: to improve the healthy and active living of older adults with decreased physical capacity by encouraging physical activity and socialisation. Then, an idea was created to employ state-of-the-art interactive technologies along with user-participatory design and co-creation methodologies.
The VR2Care Digital Ecosystem was designed and developed to be a system-of.systems adopting the identified requirements for pilot scenarios and following a cocreating methodology. A core integration orchestrator, the VR2Care Connector, bring together the technology solutions provided by the tech partners. Three of the integrated solutions are existing products that have been extended to be able to provide a set of services for the VR2Care Digital Ecosystem under the system-of-systems architecture: SmartAL (from Altice Labs), a telemonitoring solution which allows caregivers and patients to define and execute daily monitoring plans; REHABILITY (from Imaginary) a gamified tele-rehabilitation solution that incorporates highly personalised therapy plans under specialist control and guidance; and cogvisAI (from Cogvis) a module-based care solution for falls, activity, and safety. A new solution for Multiuser Training, using a VR Environment with avatar embodiment and natural interaction have been implemented and integrated, based on the INESC TEC concept and existing OnlineGym proof of concept.

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