AIT Technology Experience Lab
Overview
- Year of Establishment: 2014
- AIT, Center for Technology Experience
- Vienna, Austria
- Governance: AIT, Center for Technology Experience
- Type of Living Lab
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- Living Testbed (Technology Testing, Tech transfer)
Online Presence
Challenges
The living lab aims at preparing, setting up and realizing the investigation and implementation of health-related and assistive products and services for the well-being of an aging society. The highly interdisciplinary team provides the facilities and competences to develop and test enhanced forms of contextual user experiences. The AIT Health Experience Lab facilities aim to create and measure dedicated experiences in key health technology areas and application contexts in order to optimally align future technologies to specific user groups and different contextual situations.
Goals & Vision
We consider the AIT Technology Experience Lab is a research space that supports the development, evaluation of and experimentation with (new) products and services. We aim at encouraging co-creation processes through active user and stakeholder involvement.
Operations
→Previous Projects:
- WAALTeR – A test region in Vienna, Austria.A test region in Vienna, Austria. The project aimed at fostering social participation, supporting safety, and enhancing health and well-being for older adults. The combination of different products and services aim at enhancing quality of life for the target group. 83 households were equipped with different services (e.g., fall detection system) and were accompanied via a period of 18 months.
- SUCCESS. Within this project innovative trainings through avatar-based role playing and gamification approaches were developed to support caregiver communication and everyday situation support in dementia care. Within a 6-month trial the impact on caregivers and persons with dementia was evaluated.
→Running/Ongoing Projects:
- HiStory. The research project offers an innovative solution that allows to tell personal stories on a predefined topic and to share and listen to it in an easy and funny way. It aims at bringing together younger and older people to create interaction and support social cohesion in terms of solidarity. Predominant values orientations of older generations can be revealed and reflected by younger generations in a respectful collaborative setting and, hence, foster an intergenerational discourse on an emotional, cognitive, and social level. Within a field trial the digital and analogue service is currently tested in Austria, the Netherlands and Switzerland.
Area(s) of work
Areas of work: Health & Wellbeing, Social Innovation, Culture and creativity
Subsections: Health & Wellbeing, Sustainability, Active Ageing
Staff Expertise
Experts in the field of Human-Computer Interaction, Psychology, Sociology, Design, Computer Engineering, Communication Science.
Services
→ Networking and capacity building: Expert opinion, and advisory services.
→ Project planning and management: Expert opinion, and advisory services; Intake and matching; Living lab project planning and management.
→ Co-creation: Co-creation session; Expert opinion, and advisory services.
→ Testing and validation: Concept and proof-of-concept tests – concept feasibility study; Expert opinion, and advisory services; Idea selection and testing; Impact assessment and validation test; Large-scale real-life testing and piloting; Post-market surveillance and market acceptance testing; Prototyping test; Simulation test; Small-scale real-life testing and experimentation. Planning to offer: Clinical trials.
Visit our Living Lab Harmonisation Wiki Page for detailed descriptions of the Research & Development services that Living Labs offer.
Equipment
The following technologies and devices can be accessed for research purposes at AIT Technology Experience Lab:
→Activity Tracking/Monitoring
- Body positιon (Kinect)
- Movement Measurement (Smart watches, tumble sensor)
- Physical activity & performance: ECG
- Stress level: skin conductance measurement
→Assisting Technology: Alarm system; Safe bathroom usage; Safe walk assistance
→Biometrics: Heart rate
→Biosignals: EEG, ECG
→Environment/context: Indoor movements
→Physiological monitoring: Virtual Reality (Oculus Rift)
→Virtual reality/interactive technology: Gesture detection/smile (Face reader)
Visit our Living Lab Harmonisation Wiki Page for more details regarding Living Lab technologies and devices.
Stakeholders Population
| Stakeholders Population | Age | Social and Health condition | Max nr. of subjects that can be enrolled for TA | Other info |
| Older adults | 60+ | independently living older adults; older adults in senior’s homes | 50 | Via own panel |
| General population | 18+ | n.a. | 100 | Via own panel |
| Caregivers formal/health care professionals | 18+ | n.a. | 10-20 | Based on partner network |
| Caregivers informal | 18+ | n.a. | 10-20 | Based on partner network |
| Health care organisations | 18+ | n.a. | 5-10 | Based on partner network |
| General Population | 18+ | Chronical diseases: e.g. persons with chronic pulmonary (COPD), cardiological or other conditions (aphasia) | 20 | Based on partner network |
Use Cases based on Researchers Expertise
Researchers from the following domains are considered the most suitable for Transnational Access to AIT Technology Experience Lab (the list is non exhaustive):
→ Experts in communication studies: Defining written, oral, visual and digital communication within a certain workplace. Evaluating (multi professional) healthcare team collaboration, communication and debriefing in various healthcare situations in simulated environments (especially in Simulation lab)
→ Computer/Technology Scientists: Developing systems/tools/ technologies, testing and evaluating an ICT tool, prototype and real-life testing, computer vision & AI, Virtual Reality & Augmented Reality, Cybersecurity
→ Experts in UX research and assessment: Developing the process for user experience design (UXD, UED, or XD) supporting user behaviour through usability, usefulness, and desirability provided in the interaction with a product or service, addressing all aspects as perceived by users with a focus on the quality of the user experience. Studying and experimenting the best practices for UI/UX and evaluating user’s experience in different situations and while using different tools
→ Experts in ergonomics and safety: Implementation and validation of ergonomic technologies/services to support workers and system performance, promoting ergonomics in working environments, improving both health/well-being and productivity, while avoiding occupational hazards
→ Citizen Scientists / users as co-researchers: User empowerment, training, design, analysis and implementation of strategies and methodologies for user engagement and for raising awareness and generating citizen participation
→ Experts in accessibility Design: Validating accessible Architectonics and escape route models with VR experiment and real-life simulations
→ Innovation and design management researchers: Ecosystem and innovation management research, social network analysis. Evaluating how health and wellbeing ecosystem operates between different actors at local, regional, national and international level, including also scaling and commercialization
→ Experts in organizational studies: Co-creation, experimentation, organizational research, experts by experience / peer support included. Evaluation how multistakeholder collaboration and co-creation is done and how effective it is. Evaluates experimentations and experimentation culture. How users are involved into these processes
→ Data Scientists: Collecting, analysing and interpreting digital data, such as data analytics in healthcare and digital patient recordings (how patient information recording process is managed and utilized during the intervention by using digital tools in simulated situations)
Apply for Transnational Access to AIT Technology Experience Lab