PhyUM Research Center @ AULA 2024

The PhyUM Research Center of the School of Advanced Computer Engineering (ETSII) had a prominent role within the UNED stand at the International Student and Educational Offer Exhibition (AULA). The event, which once again consolidates itself as an essential reference in the educational field, plays a crucial role in providing students with the necessary tools to make effective decisions about their educational and professional future. At this event, UNED showed its wide educational offer, including degrees, masters and doctorates taught at the ETSII.

The active presence of the PhyUM Research Center at AULA underlines their continued commitment to academic excellence and the promotion of informed decisions by students, in addition to giving visibility to the research carried out at PhyUM by students in their Final Degree,  Master and Doctoral Thesis dissertation programs, aimed at the development of intelligent systems for learning motor skills following the SMDD framework.

In the morning session, Dr. Olga C. Santos, Director of the PhyUM Research Center and Miguel Portaz, Secretary of the PhyUM Research Center, had the opportunity to present an activity focused on how to apply technology in basketball using the iBAID psychomotor system , where they showed the use of sensors and the possibilities to improve the technique in the execution of movements with artificial intelligence in two common basketball training exercises: lateral movements in defense and the free throw.

This initiative not only grab the attention of numerous attendees, but also caught the attention of the Minister of Science, Innovation and Universities, Diana Morant, during her visit to the UNED stand. In her conversation with the minister, Dr. Santos highlighted the research carried out in our School and the active participation of our students in them:

At PhyUM we have been applying smart technologies and electronic devices for 10 years to monitor cognitive and physical activity, including affective aspects and following an approach based on the hybrid intelligence paradigm, where humans and machines collaborate to increase their capabilities when it comes to helping people to carry out physical activities, such as those related to sports. We do not address the challenge of building intelligent psychomotor systems for learning motor skills only from our laboratory at PhyUM, but we share it with the students of the UNED’s School of Advanced Computer Engineering by offering attractive PFG and TFM that, in many cases, as those presented at AULA not only in this edition but also in previous ones, lead to Doctoral Theses with potential even for the development of entrepreneurial projects. In addition, from the PhyUM Research Center we are also promoting different transfer actions, such as the ITEAD Chair with the UNED Associated Center in Valencia, which will allow us to delve deeper into research and technology on active aging based on data with the specific participation of students from that area.

Likewise, Minister Diana Morant showed special interest in the functioning of the activity that was being carried out at that time and in how the use of technology can favor sports learning, to which Miguel Portaz added:

As researchers within the HumanAID project, on the one hand, it is essential to be able to promote the development of technologies that are affordable, thus promoting their universal use. On the other hand, with the sensors and equipment used, we can collect different types of information with the necessary resolution, to adequately model the behaviour of users and thus be able to guide them in the correct execution of movements, providing feedback through different sensory channels that take into account the needs and progress of each person, introducing aspects of personalisation and adaptability, from a perspective of ethical responsibility.

The Minister’s interest highlighted the relevance and impact of the research carried out by the PhyUM Research Center as a result of the experiences discussed.

In the afternoon session we also had the participation of Raúl Cabestrero, associate professor at UNED and member of the PhyUM Research Center, with whom we were able to present another of the developments carried out within the Center. On this occasion, we had the opportunity to show the KLS psychomotor system that is being developed by Alberto Casas Ortiz in his Doctoral Thesis at UNED, with which we can learn martial arts, specifically, American Kenpo Karate, combining artificial intelligence and virtual reality.