The SKILLS project (2006 – 2011)

Acronym: SKILLS
Name: Multimodal Interfaces for Capturing and Transfer of Skill
Type: Integrated project
Funding: European Union (IST 6th European framework program, Multimodal Interfaces)
Amount: 10, 000, 000 €
Coordinator: Massimo Bergamasco, PERCRO, Pisa, Italy
UM1 key researchers: Benoît Bardy (SKILLS responsible) - Didier Delignières – Julien Lagarde  Denis Mottet - Ludovic Marin - Stéphane Perrey - Sofiane Ramdani - Sebastien Villard - Manuel Varlet - Gregory Zelic
Collaborators: see below

The SKILLS Integrated Project deals with the acquisition, storing and transfer of human skill by means of multimodal interfaces, Robotics and Virtual Environments technologies.

The research in SKILLS addresses the fundamental aspects of skill analysis from a cognitive science and interaction design point of view. For specific contexts of operation, cognitive aspects of tasks executed by skilled persons are analyzed and utilized to obtain a digital representation of skill and for the definition of methodologies and techniques for capturing and rendering of skill through digital technologies.

The introduction of more direct and intuitive paradigms of interaction with the computer, as those performed in SKILLS, can render future software applications more accessible to non-specialists. Moreover, the process of acquiring and storing skill allows to generate digital archives of performed acts of doing which are usually lost when the craftsman or the skilled worker loses his/her capabilities due to illness or declining of years.

The capability of being able to acquire, to store and to transfer specific skills, such as those of a craftsman or a surgeon, into the digital domain can generate new ways of interacting with the computer and communicate knowledge through it.

SKILLS takes three different application domains into consideration for demonstrators: sport and entertainment, surgery and rehabilitation, manufacturing and industry. Interaction design methodologies are implemented in these contexts in order to address the design of novel interfaces focused on skill transfer and being able to improve task performances or generate innovative processes.

THE SKILLS INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE WILL BE HELD IN MONTPELLIER IN DECEMBER 2011. SEE HERE  

PARTICIPANTS in the SKILLS project: