BrainMap

Mrs. Nirvana Popescu

prof.dr.ing.

- UNIVERSITATEA NAȚIONALĂ DE ȘTIINȚĂ ȘI TEHNOLOGIE POLITEHNICA BUCUREȘTI

Researcher | Teaching staff

Curriculum Vitae (06/11/2020)

Expertise & keywords

A network for dynamic WEarable Applications with pRivacy constraints Call name:
H2020 813278 2019 - 2022

Role in this project: Key expert

Coordinating institution: TAMPEREEN KORKEAKOULUSAATIO SR

Project partners: TAMPEREEN KORKEAKOULUSAATIO SR (); BEIA CONSULT INTERNATIONAL S.R.L. ()

Affiliation: TAMPEREEN KORKEAKOULUSAATIO SR ()

Project website: http://www.beiaro.eu/a-wear/

Abstract:

The emerging market of wearables is expected to grow exponentially in the near future, driven by the sales increase of smart clothes, watches, and eyeglasses. The future wearables are likely to be heterogeneous, operating on batteries, sun power or human motion, and endowed with smart functions. They will co-operate in a decentralized manner with each other and will be able to reach various interconnected software and applications. The main stream wearable-based architecture has been applied so far in wellbeing industries, such as eHealth or ambient assisted living, which might also reduce the costs for care and guarantee a healthy independent live in the forthcoming older society. As the digitalisation and data-based economy are growing, the exploitation potential of the wearables can easily be expected to increase. Key wearables stakeholder groups in the future are also smart cities, comprising intelligent building industry and infrastructure, energy-efficient smart grid sector, public e-Services, and smart transport. Motivated by the opportunities that next-generation wearable intelligence is expected to provide, the mission of A-WEAR action is to cross-disciplinarily create new architectures, open-source software and frameworks for dynamic wearable ecosystems, with distributed localization and privacy constraints. We aim at building new joint/double European doctoral programmes to train a new generation of young researchers in order to be aware of, to cope with, and to disseminate to a large audience the vulnerabilities and the corresponding solutions of the communication and positioning through wearables. The impact of A-WEAR will be to enhance the future social well-being, to contribute to an easy living, effective and enjoyable work, and to offer new solutions to the challenges of violation of privacy by communication and positioning through wearables and to the need of applying the right of the ownership to one’s data.

Information system based on cloud services, accessible through mobile devices, for quality improvement of products and business development in farms Call name: Joint Applied Research Projects - PCCA 2013 - call
PN-II-PT-PCCA-2013-4-0870 2014 - 2017

Role in this project:

Coordinating institution: UNIVERSITATEA POLITEHNICA DIN BUCURESTI

Project partners: UNIVERSITATEA POLITEHNICA DIN BUCURESTI (RO); CBM ELECTRONICS S.R.L. (RO); FUTURE IT EXPERT S.R.L. (RO)

Affiliation: FUTURE IT EXPERT S.R.L. (RO)

Project website: http://cluefarm.hpc.pub.ro

Abstract:

E-services allowed transition from the punctual processes approach, in agriculture, in which each process was treated isolated, to the integrated approach, that allows the unified management of all processes. In this context, the agricultural greenhouse can be treated as a complex system, in which soil moisture, a decisive factor in plant growth is correlated with technical factors (other measured measures, type of crop, soil type, season, geographical location), with economic efficiency and the ergonomics of the farmer’s workplace or the influences of other adjacent systems and phenomena (climatic, hydrological, access to expertise, legal regulations, etc.). The overall objective of the proposal is to create an intelligent, integrated, cloud services-based system, using advanced computer technology, automation and communications to increase product quality and business development in the area of farming. The specific objective is to create an integrated control system for controlling the process in greenhouse crop production, using the services available on mobile devices. The services also offer simple and cheap integration of the existing infrastructure in various types of companies involved in agriculture. The added value generated by the system results from the creation of a virtual space that can be shared by several categories of companies:

- Agricultural farms, greenhouses particularly

- Companies providing information and training services to farmers

- Companies supplying equipment and agricultural materials, for modern technology-based advertising for agricultural products, seeds, tools, etc..

- Associations of farmers, interested in a virtual environment for collaboration between farms / companies

- Other entities interested in working with listed categories (eg local/central government services)

The project increases the quality of agricultural products grown in greenhouses by combining several advanced cloud services used on the entire value creation chain.

The primary chain services provide real-time measurement of specific parameters (humidity, temperature, soil composition) and direct drive of watering equipment, depending on the specific culture of each lot.

The secondary chain services (support) provides:

- Setting up lots within the greenhouse to allow differential treatment depending on the culture;

- Information / training of farmers on the most appropriate methods / tools / techniques for cultivation of various crops:

- Commercial advertising, for suppliers of specific equipment and materials (seeds, fertilizers, tools specifically destined to be used in greenhouses);

- Liaison with local/central government, for rapid and efficient information of measures / regulations or situations of interest to farmers.

- Interoperability with platforms that monitor environmental conditions (meteorology, hydrology, pollution) to retrieve warning/alert messages.

All services are available on mobile platforms.

The project will end with an experimental model of the integrated system, which includes the cloud platform hosting the services, the system of sensors (the method of measuring the soil moisture is intended to be patented) and the driving system of the watering equipment.

The platform allows the connection of any type of automation device already installed in the greenhouse, by appropriate web service connector. If the farmer does not have such facilities, he will have to purchase only sensors that will be positioned in the appropriate places and actuators for watering and for accesing the services he will subscribe to the web service, which in turn will provide information in the desired format and will drive the watering equipment.

Virtual Therapist with Augmented Feedback for Neuromotor Recovery Call name: Joint Applied Research Projects - PCCA 2013 - call
PN-II-PT-PCCA-2013-4-1580 2014 - 2017

Role in this project:

Coordinating institution: UNIVERSITATEA POLITEHNICA DIN BUCURESTI

Project partners: UNIVERSITATEA POLITEHNICA DIN BUCURESTI (RO); INSTITUTUL NATIONAL DE NEUROLOGIE SI BOLI NEUROVASCULARE (RO); INSTITUTUL NATIONAL DE RECUPERARE, MEDICINA FIZICA SI BALNEOCLIMATOLOGIE (RO); UNIVERSITATEA TEHNICĂ "GHEORGHE ASACHI" IAŞI (RO); OSF GLOBAL SERVICES SRL (RO)

Affiliation: UNIVERSITATEA POLITEHNICA DIN BUCURESTI (RO)

Project website: http://travee.upb.ro

Abstract:

TRAVEE (Virtual Therapist with Augmented Feedback for Neuromotor Recovery) will design, implement and validate an original and affordable IT system for recovery of patients with neuromotor impairments following strokes, traumas or brain surgery.

Stroke is the leading cause of long term disability in modern societies, with huge economical and social implications. Growing life expectancy accentuates the issues, leading to impossibility of decent care and rehab based only on human therapists. In this context, IT care and recovery solutions are of utmost importance for core functioning of modern societies.

TRAVEE relies on a brand new idea - recovery through augmented feedback - that creates new, distinct possibilities to overcome block stages typical to early recovery.

Neuromotor recovery relies on neuroplasticity (generic term covering various adaptive modifications of the cortex). The causal chain specific to recovery includes:

- motor act is performed or attempted, by the patient, with or without external help;

- patient observes sensations and results (visually, haptic or proprioceptive);

- patient's cortex associate the motor act with the observations and gradually learns and perfects the motor act.

Most techniques and systems for neuromotor recovery only pay attention to the motor act performance, neglecting the essentiality of observation. We consider that their limited success is due exactly to this conceptual simplification. TRAVEE brings a solution to handle the whole recovery causal chain, in a unified way. Its implementation will improve the number of recovery cases, the average recovery degrees and time, with major socio-economic impact.

To harness the potential of this idea, TRAVEE will employ modern technologies: virtual reality, robotics, BCI, EMG, FES, telemedicine, etc.

A patient's 3D virtual body model (VBM) will aggregate data from sensors for position, movement, central & peripheral nervous activity. VBM will be updated in real time and rendered to the patient on a screen or video glasses.

A therapy session consists in a task being given to the patient, his attempts to perform it and assistance from the system in various ways (augmented feedback, robotic support, functional electric stimulation, etc.) - based on a preconfigured program or under direct therapist's control.

Unlike robotics or FES, which are encountered in many approaches, feedback augmentation is an innovative feature of TRAVEE, consisting in its capacity to alter the representation of the VBM to allow the observation of modifications otherwise unobservable by the patient (e.g. very small moves can be represented enlarged to a degree that makes them perceivable by the patient; detected failed intentions of movement can be represented as small moves). In this way, the causal loop can be closed, avoiding blocking of recovery.

TRAVEE will develop also innovative methods for communicating with the target patients, one being its presentation as a virtual therapist, a concept new in this field, backed up by the medical specialists from the consortium, attractive and stimulating for the patients.

This project will develop a fully functional prototype and a library of training programs dedicated to early stages of recovery and validate them on a large number of patients. The prototype with the library will be submitted to the procedure for medical certification and subsequently commercialized as a package including hardware, software and medical procedures.

TRAVEE will embody in an affordable system, easy to install and use - in dedicated facilities or at homes (independent or through telemedicine).

The Consortium has a multi-disciplinary structure, with all essential complementary competencies required for the conception and development of TRAVEE as IT, medical and commercial system. TRAVEE is an original concept, with potential to turn into an affordable product improving neuromotor rehab, with exceptional socio-economic impact.

Intelligent radio/video station aided GPS/Galileo for meteor detection Call name: Joint Applied Research Projects - PCCA-2011 call, Type 2
PN-II-PT-PCCA-2011-3.2-1322 2012 - 2016

Role in this project:

Coordinating institution: ELCOS PROIECT S.R.L.

Project partners: ELCOS PROIECT S.R.L. (RO); INSTITUTUL NATIONAL DE CERCETARE-DEZVOLTARE PENTRU OPTOELECTRONICA INOE 2000 INCD (RO); UNIVERSITATEA POLITEHNICA DIN BUCURESTI (RO); AGENTIA SPATIALA ROMANA (RO)

Affiliation: UNIVERSITATEA POLITEHNICA DIN BUCURESTI (RO)

Project website: http://www.proiect-allsky.ro/

Abstract:

Mission statement: ALLSKY’s mission is to develop a meteor detection intelligent station with video/radio capability and local processing unit. This intelligent station will use a neural engine that uses patterns for the recognition of artifacts as well as a digital filter, based on Wavelet transform. The ALLSKY station will be maintenance-free and it will be able to operate for a long time without the intervention of specialized personnel, so that it can be placed in isolated areas without light pollution.

The intelligent station for detection of the meteors, with video/radio capability and GPS/ Galileo assisted, is a future commercial product that will allow offering to export a scientific instrument with the best technical characteristics available at this moment.

The technical novelties brought by our product are: scanning multiple radio-beacons in a quasi-circular way which will allow increasing over 10 times the opportunity window, available for a classic radio station for meteor detection.

This fact, combined with the integration of the station into a national network, will allow the education of the neural software with the experiences of all the network members. Sharing knowledge will enable fast growth of the efficiency of the neural system, by dynamic calibration of the filtering patterns and obtaining performances otherwise unimaginable.

PARTICIPANTS will be able to test all system aspects of meteor detection for all day/all weather situations.

AN INTELLIGENT HAPTIC ROBOT GLOVE for the PATIENTS SUFFERING A CEREBROVASCULAR ACCIDENT Call name: Joint Applied Research Projects - PCCA-2011 call, Type 1
PN-II-PT-PCCA-2011-3.1-0291 2012 - 2016

Role in this project:

Coordinating institution: UNIVERSITATEA POLITEHNICA DIN BUCURESTI

Project partners: UNIVERSITATEA POLITEHNICA DIN BUCURESTI (RO); UNIVERSITATEA TEHNICĂ "GHEORGHE ASACHI" IAŞI (RO); UNIVERSITATEA DIN CRAIOVA (RO); SPITALUL CLINIC DE RECUPERARE (RO)

Affiliation: UNIVERSITATEA POLITEHNICA DIN BUCURESTI (RO)

Project website: http://www.ihrg.pub.ro

Abstract:

In the last decade, the scientific community has become increasingly interested in so-called Rehabilitation Robotics, a branch of the areas of Robotics and Mechatronics that addresses to the study of complex robotic systems aimed at the restoration of human functions for those people who haved suffered major trauma as a result of strokes and cerebrovascular diseases. A cerebrovascular stroke occurs when a blood vessel (an artery) that supplies blood to an area of the brain bursts or is clogged by a blood clot. As a result, the part of the body that is controlled by the affected area of the brain cannot function properly.Total loss or loss of range of motion, decreased reaction times and disordered movement organization create deficits in motor control, which affect the patient’s independent living.A key feature of our project is that subjects at any impairment level can repetitively practice and complete stereotyped movement patterns. Active retraining can positively shape the cortical reorganization associated with motor recovery following brain injury. This therapy involves intensive repetitive exercise of the more affected limb coupled with constraint of the opposite limb and results in positive cortical reorganization in the motor cortex.

This project deals with the design and development of an Intelligent Haptic Robot-Glove (IHRG) for the rehabilitation of the patients that have a diagnosis of a cerebrovascular accident (CVA).The IHRG is an exoskeleton that supports human hand and hand activities by using a control and virtual architecture for dexterous grasping and manipulation. This IHRG is a medical device that acts in parallell to a hand in order to compensate some lost function. In this project, a novel mechatronic approach for the development of an exoskeleton assistive hand is considered, integrating the mechanical structure, the sensory , the actuation system and the virtual and control system.

High-PErformance Computing of PersonAlized CaRdio-Vascular ComponenT Models Call name: Joint Applied Research Projects - PCCA-2011 call, Type 2
PN-II-PT-PCCA-2011-3.2-1229 2012 - 2016

Role in this project:

Coordinating institution: UNIVERSITATEA TRANSILVANIA BRASOV

Project partners: UNIVERSITATEA TRANSILVANIA BRASOV (RO); SIEMENS SRL (RO); UNIVERSITATEA POLITEHNICA DIN BUCURESTI (RO); SPITALUL CLINIC DE URGENTA (RO)

Affiliation: UNIVERSITATEA POLITEHNICA DIN BUCURESTI (RO)

Project website: http://heart.unitbv.ro

Abstract:

The incidence of premature morbidity and mortality for Coronary Artery Disease patients is still very high,the main reason being the lack of accurate in-vivo and in-vitro patient-specific estimates for diagnosis and progression of the disease.For example,in the case of coronary stenosis, accurate estimates of the anantomy as seen in the diagnostic images,can vastly underestimate or overestimate the severity of the blockage.For a functional assessment of such a blockage,analysis of the subsequent disease progression and assessment of the best intervention/surgical option for an individual patient,it is important to incorporate multi-faceted information from the hemodynamics and cellular mechanisms from multiple scales.Incorporating such multi-scale information in a complex computational model has been difficult in the past due to the high computational demands therefore it is important to enable such simulations on High Performance Computing(HPC)platforms.

HEART wants:

-To develop,integrate and validate patient-specific multi-scale computational models with high predictive power for coronary circulation in healthy and diseased vessels:

•Comprehensive modeling of the anatomical,hemodynamic and cellular phenomenon in coronary circulation

•Efficient multi-scale coupling with the state-of-the-art heart models for advanced patient-specific simulations

•Assessment of functional parameters and subsequent validation of the models.

-To improve the clinical management of coronary artery disease by leveraging the computational models to create specific therapeutic interventions:

•Simulation based methods for intervention planning(virtual stenting, angioplasty and Coronary Artery Bypass Graft) using computational models.

•HPC architecture for efficiently addressing the multi-scale complexity, a critical requirement for translation into clinical decision making; Comparative analysis of the potential implementations: GPUvsCluster based platforms.

Bioinspired techniques for robotic swarms security Call name: Exploratory Research Projects - PCE-2012 call
PN-II-ID-PCE-2012-4-0239 2013 - 2016

Role in this project:

Coordinating institution: UNIVERSITATEA POLITEHNICA DIN BUCURESTI

Project partners: UNIVERSITATEA POLITEHNICA DIN BUCURESTI (RO)

Affiliation: UNIVERSITATEA POLITEHNICA DIN BUCURESTI (RO)

Project website: http://newswarm.buiu.net

Abstract:

Robots are already not anymore the solitary machines designed to replace humans in dull, dirty or dangerous tasks. They tend to become ubiquitous and everyday partners for humans. Over the last decade, increasingly sophisticated threats to our computers’ and networks’ security have emerged and are threatening our personas, digital identities, commercial secrets, etc.

In this context, there is an increasing concern on the security of human-robot and robot-robot relationships and interactions, but the security of robotic swarms has been largely overlooked. Our project addresses for the first time the question of how to assure full physical and cyber-security of a robotic swarm through a systematic bio-inspired approach.

The project’s goals are twofold:

A. to rigorously analyze, define, clasify and model the entire spectrum of robotic swarms security hazards.

B. to propose, develop and test novel approaches based on using P systems for responding in a timely and appropriate manner to main sources of unsecurity identified under (A).

The end result will be a global safe and resilient autonomous behaviour of the swarm and so opens the way towards application of swarm in a variety of different applications and environments: search and detection of military targets, mine clearance, handling and transportation of materials in uncertain and hazardous industrial environments, assisting human teams in search and rescue operations, medication provision and patient monitoring

FILE DESCRIPTION	DOCUMENT
List of research grants as project coordinator
List of research grants as partner team leader
List of research grants as project coordinator or partner team leader
Significant R&D projects for enterprises, as project manager
R&D activities in enterprises
Peer-review activity for international programs/projects