The Visualization and Virtual Reality Group has been selected by the European Commission as a finalist in the category “Tech of Society” for the Innovation Radar Prize 2019. The Innovation Radar is among others a “scouting” activity of the EC and aims to identify innovative research of single organizations in the context of European projects. Initially 40 finalists were selected spread in four categories. After online voting of the public the VVR group has been ranked 2nd in the Tech for Society category. https://ec.europa.eu/futurium/en/innovation-radar-prize/tech-for-society-2019
Within the OActive project, University of Patras is interested in predicting the severity of osteoarthritis and then derive a personalized intervention strategy to delay the progression of the disease. To achieve this, they rely on automatic methods for creating multi-scale subject-specific finite element models of the knee from magnetic resonance images. These models are further constrained from experimentally measured kinematics and externally applied forces in order to simulate more complex movement behaviors like gait. Through simulation, the loading of the soft tissues is identified and is is decided how to change the habits of individuals through gait retraining and augmented reality.
There are two major outcomes related to this work. The first is related to the subject-specific modeling, simulation and analysis of the knee mechanics, which is of baseline research nature with long term goals targeting not only to osteoarthritis but planning of surgeries for anterior ligament reconstruction and knee replacement through simulation. The second is related to the development of a modular framework for extracting meaningful quantities from experimental measurements and musculoskeletal models in real-time. This can facilitate application in the broad field of rehabilitation, ergonomics, control of exoskeleton and assistive devices.
