###AI Hardware for Advanced Photonic Brain-Computer Interface and Human-Robot Interaction
Project ID: 2228bd1214 (You will need this ID for your application)
Research Theme: Healthcare Technologies
UCL Lead department: Division of Surgery and Interventional Sciences
Lead Supervisor: Hubin Zhao
Project Summary:
The emergence of new photonic imaging modalities, such as functional Near-Infrared Spectroscopy (fNIRS), have demonstrated the high potential for Brain-Computer Interface (BCI), Human-Robot Interaction (HRI), and personal healthcare. However, conventional approach for data/imaging processing of fNIRS are offline processing and not in real-time. Meanwhile, the processing unit is usually chosen as PC, which is bulky, and heavy, which limit their wider applications particularly for BCI/HRI.
The aim for this PhD project is to develop new-generation AI hardware for on-board real-time photonic imaging processing at the edge so as to develop a new generation of technology for BCI and HRI applications. Using microchip technology with embedded AI algorithms such as deep learning, an AI hardware platform will be implemented to miniaturize and localize the imaging processing units, to reduce the processing time, and to improve the processing quality, so as to realize on-board real-time signal processing and data fusion.
During this PhD project, the student will exploit advanced engineering approaches including photonic electronics, reconfigurable hardware, AI enabled data processing, and optical imaging to realise a new-generation, embedded, intelligent, reconfigurable hardware to achieve real-time, local multimodal (fNIRS+EEG) image processing. Specific machine learning will be developed and implemented on this new hardware platform so as to miniaturize and localize the image processing units with optimal processing quality and speed; apart from BCI/HRI, this technology can further be applied across a range of photonic imaging, health monitoring, neuroscience & clinical applications in the future.
The PhD student will gain substantial knowledge in fields such as photonics & electronics, optical imaging, AI hardware, and will learn various useful skills such as hardware programming, AI algorithms, data analysis. These knowledge and skills will be applicable in a wide range of future careers for the student.