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Empowering the mobile worker by wearable computing

Project description

Applications and Services for the Mobile User and worker
Why not wear your computer to work?

Wearing computers and computer-controlled devices in the workplace is becoming increasingly popular and is set to become commonplace.

Thanks in large part to work being done by European researchers, wearable computers – or simply ‘wearables’ – come in many forms. These include computers on a belt, spectacles with video displays and location devices stored in shoes.

The devices are all designed to make work easier, quicker and often safer for people in environments where using even a handheld computer is not a viable option.

Originally launched in 2004, the WearIT@work project, is now in its third phase and is still going strong. The project team has focused on developing a new paradigm for wearable mobile computing.

Researchers aim to support complex tasks with a minimum of human-machine interaction, allowing people to focus instead on their work environments.

Field testing prototypes

Initially, four different fields were chosen for pilot studies – healthcare, emergency response, aircraft maintenance, and production management and training. Having set up initial showcases for the projects, the researchers then developed and tested system prototypes, with the final stage being a full-scale industrial pilot.

In healthcare, WearIT@work set out to develop a system that would improve the availability of information in real time. The system also aims to improve communication, data sharing, data management and information documentation among healthcare professionals.

The prototype system is a textile integrated input device that is able to communicate with fixed infrastructure, such as bedside displays and portable devices. Users have access to all available patient information at any time and anywhere in the hospital.

Vision of the future

The researchers envisage a future when doctors and nurses will wear similar equipment everywhere they work, in surgeries and on home visits, as well as in hospitals. They also forecast that convalescents and the elderly will be equipped with wearables allowing medical staff to monitor and advise them.

For the emergency services pilot, which concentrated on fire services, the researchers had several different challenges to meet. They developed a navigation system prototype called LifeNet. The prototype gives a mission controller an exact location fix of everybody during a fire, and helps track them in real time as they move around.

Improved communications between individual fire fighters and with the control centre was achieved via a software component that creates ad-hoc networks using whatever systems happen to be available.

Another software algorithm allows the fire fighters to control the wearable system through voice commands.

Aircraft maintenance vest

The maintenance pilot test involved equipping aircraft maintenance personnel with a vest integrated with a variety of wearable technologies. For the fourth pilot, workers on a car production line were given all of the information they required to perform production tasks.

Overall, the project resulted in a technological repository of hardware and software wearable solutions for an increasing number of workplace scenarios.

Wearable mobile computing empowers professionals to higher levels of productivity. It provides effective forms of access to knowledge and computing power anywhere and in any situation. The new technology-paradigm meets the growing demand on European professionals to become more flexible and efficient in an increasingly challenging work environment. Wearable computing will improve productivity because it allows workers to complete more complex tasks in less time and with less effort. wearIT@work will develop a core technology in the transition of the European economy to a service-centred economy, as a result of which new jobs and economic growth in Europe will be generated. Europe should take the lead in exploiting this unique potential of job creation, job enhancement, and economic growth. Because the mobile computing solutions of today are still too complex, too obtrusive, and too demanding on the user to be seamlessly integrated into complex work-processes, their usability in industrial scenarios and their acceptance by the workers is still limited. wearIT@work takes the next important step of innovation: it will develop a new paradigm for wearable mobile computing that supports complex tasks with a minimum of human-machine interaction and thereby enables mobile professionals to keep their attention focused on the interaction with the work environment. A new software and hardware platform will be created in which professionals can be mobile and at the same time fully integrated into the surrounding IT infrastructure.The new technology will have a long-term impact on the organization of individual and collaborative work and create new ways to organize work. The feasibility of the wearIT@work approach will be tested in a set of real-world pilot applications. In a close feedback-loop, experiences made in the pilots will be used to optimize methods and tools and to prove the usability of wearable mobile computing in industrial settings.

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Programme(s)

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Topic(s)

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Call for proposal

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FP6-2003-IST-2
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Funding Scheme

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IP - Integrated Project

Coordinator

UNIVERSITAET BREMEN
EU contribution
€ 2 284 165,00
Address
Universitaetsalle 21-23
28359 Bremen
Germany

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Activity type
Higher or Secondary Education Establishments
Total cost

The total costs incurred by this organisation to participate in the project, including direct and indirect costs. This amount is a subset of the overall project budget.
No data

Participants (44)

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Last update: 11 April 2016

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