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A New and Exciting Assistive Technology Developed in the School of Engineering Using Latest Advances in Electronics and AI
Imagine waking up and not being able to see colours, faces, words, or light. Everyday tasks (reading a sign, finding your way) become challenges. Imagine a world without sound — no music, no voices, no laughter.
Over the summer, students and researchers in the Embedded Systems Group at UCC, under the supervision of Professor Emanuel Popovici, attempted to envision exactly that and develop an assistive technolog with the potential to transform many lives.
Their tool is called Quality Commpanion and integrates AI and electronics into assistive technology for the visually and hearing impaired.
For quite some time, vision has become one of AI’s most important applications, and some astonishing advances have been made. More recently, augmented reality in the form of smart glasses is another technology which is promising adoption in a myriad of applications. The students under the mentorship of Prof Emanuel Popovici and Dr. Robert Fourie managed to bring these technologies together and implement them at the edge, powered only by a battery. No internet? No problem! Large Language Models can run now at the edge on a laptop. The combination of very talented students together with outstanding electronics and AI technologies can produce “miracles” which were impossible until yesterday. Some of the early realisations of the technology for the visually impaired is captured in the video below:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4IPjMImEMVA
This is another example of a project with a potentially significant impact, which was made possible due to outstanding support from Qualcomm (through a Qualcomm Faculty Award to Prof Emanuel Popovici, but also through the University Relations and Wireless Reach programmes) and the School of Engineering (providing a stimulating and engaging environment), through Snapdragon-empowered technologies. A very special thank you to Dr. Robert Fourie and Dr. Colin Murphy for exceptional insights and discussions throughout the project. Yet, the project outcome would not have been possible without the outstanding talent displayed by our interns during the summer, namely Marc Barret Perez, Joseph O’Donoghue, Sohaib Naser (Electrical and Electronic Engineering, UCC), Florian Vidal (Paris Saclai University), Matteo Doffe (ENSEA Cergi Pontoise), Julien Balderiotti (École des Mines de Saint-Étienne), Sofiia Sarana (MTU).