Master Level Course Projects

Here you can find a list of project proposals for the courses of "Laboratorio di Intelligenza Artificiale e Robotica" (5 CFU for each student) and "Soft Computing" (1 CFU for each student)

Affective Computing

Title:	Affective VideoGames
Description:	The goal of this activity is to develop an interactive video game (Car game, Shoot them up, Strategic game ..) able to adapt its behaviour in order to maximize your enjoyment. The game will measure your excitement by analizing your biological signals, which mirror your emotional state. The system will be able to adjust some parameters (i.e difficulty of car game circuits, opponets strength ...) in order to keep you egnagemet constant: "In your flow zone!". Project phases: Design and implementation of the game (it is possible to start form avaliable open source game) Design of experimental protocol used to stimulate particolar emotions. Data acquisition by usign biological sensors during the playing experience. Off-line classification of data with avaliable tools. Desing and develop of on-line classifier sistem for emotion recognition Closed loop control: the game reacts to the user emotional state changing its behaviour. These projects allow to experiment with biological-data acquisition tools and videogames design. Each project consists on the realization of one or more phases depending on the difficulty/cfu to be achieved and to the competences of the candidate(s)
Tutor:	Cristiano Alessandro (alessandro-AT-elet-DOT-polimi-DOT-it), Simone Tognetti (togetti-AT-elet-DOT-polimi-DOT-it)
Start:	Anytime
Number of students:	1 to 3
CFU:	2.5 to 20

Title:	Affective recognition in multimedia contexts
Description:	The goal of this activity is to develop an interactive multimedia application (advertisement, e-learning, reccomenadation system) able to capture your emotional state (interests, excitement, anger, joy) while whatching to images, sounds etc. The application will measure your excitement by analizing your biological signals, which mirror your emotional state. The system could be used to give feedback on the quality of multimedia content (i.e goodness of the advertisement, enjoyment of the movie ...) Project phases: Design and implementation of the multimedia application. Design of experimental protocol used to stimulate particolar emotions. Data acquisition by usign biological sensors during the multimedia experience. Off-line classification of data with avaliable tools. Desing and develop of on-line classifier sistem for emotion recognition Closed loop control: the multimedia application will provide contents according to your enjoyment . These projects allow to experiment with biological-data acquisition tools and multimedia application design. The project consists on the realization of one or more phases depending on the difficulty/cfu to be achieved and to the competences of the candidate(s)
Tutor:	Cristiano Alessandro (alessandro-AT-elet-DOT-polimi-DOT-it), Simone Tognetti (togetti-AT-elet-DOT-polimi-DOT-it)
Start:	Anytime
Number of students:	1 to 3
CFU:	2.5 to 20

Title:	Affective robotics
Description:	The goal of this activity is to develop an rehabilitation robotic game able to capture your emotional state (interests, excitement, anger, joy, stress) while intereacting with the robot. The application will measure your excitement by analizing your biological signals, which mirror your emotional state. The system could be used to adapt the therapy (executed by the game) according to the patien's needs. We believe the quality of the theraphy is related to the subject's emotional state. The long term goal is to keep the user into a specific emotional state in order to maximize the theraphy efficacy. Project phases: Design and implementation of the robotic game on the avaliable robot. Design of experimental protocol used to stimulate particolar emotions. Data acquisition by usign biological sensors during the interaction with the robot. Off-line classification of data with avaliable tools. Desing and develop of on-line classifier sistem for emotion recognition Closed loop control: the thrapy will be adapted to the patient's needs. These projects allow to experiment with biological-data acquisition tools, robots and videogame design. The project consists on the realization of one or more phases depending on the difficulty/cfu to be achieved and to the competences of the candidate(s)
Tutor:	Cristiano Alessandro (alessandro-AT-elet-DOT-polimi-DOT-it), Simone Tognetti (togetti-AT-elet-DOT-polimi-DOT-it)
Start:	Anytime
Number of students:	1 to 3
CFU:	2.5 to 20

Title:	Driving companions
Description:	The goal of this activity is to develop an application that is able to capture your emotional state (stress, attention level .. ) while driving standard cars. The application will measure the driver's stress level by analizing his biological signals, which mirror the phisiological state, and could be used to give feedbacks to the driver in dangerous situations. Project phases: Design of experimental protocol used to stimulate particolar emotions. Data acquisition by usign biological sensors while driving in different conditions (city, highway, country ..) Off-line classification of data with avaliable tools. Desing and develop of on-line classifier sistem for emotion recognition Closed loop control: the car will give audio/visual feedbacks to the user letting him know its phisiological state These projects allow to experiment with biological-data acquisition tools, robots and videogame design. The project consists on the realization of one or more phases depending on the difficulty/cfu to be achieved and to the competences of the candidate(s)
Tutor:	Cristiano Alessandro (alessandro-AT-elet-DOT-polimi-DOT-it), Simone Tognetti (togetti-AT-elet-DOT-polimi-DOT-it)
Start:	Anytime
Number of students:	1 to 3
CFU:	2.5 to 20

Title:	Emotion from interaction
Description:	The goal of this activity is to detect emotional states, such as stress or boreness from the interaction with the computer via mouse and keyboard (Emotion from Interaction). A library getting data from these devices has been already developed. Data have to be acquired in different situations and analyzed by neural networks or other classification tools already implemented.
Tutor:	Andrea Bonarini (bonarini-AT-elet-DOT-polimi-DOT-it)
Start:	Anytime
Number of students:	1 to 2
CFU:	5 to 12.5

Computer Vision and Image Analysis

Title:	Environment Monitoring
Description:	The goal of this project is to develop a video surveillance system to track in 3D vehicles or people. The idea is to use one or more calibrated camera to estimate the position and the trajectories of the moving objects in the scene. The skills required for this project are: C/C++ and OpenCV library Linux o.s. Geometry/Image processing Probabilistic robotics/IMAD The project can be turned into a thesis extending the algorithm for a generic outdoor environment.
Tutor:	Matteo Matteucci (matteucci-AT-elet-DOT-polimi-DOT-it)
Start:	Anytime
Number of students:	2-3
CFU:	10-15

Title:	Visual Merchandising
Description:	The goal of this project is to develop algorithms to count the number of products on the shelves of a market. The idea is to use a calibrated camera to recognize the shelves, estimate the scale and improve the image quality. The skills required for this project are: C/C++ and OpenCV library Matlab (optionally) Linux Geometry/Image processing
Tutor:	Matteo Matteucci (matteucci-AT-elet-DOT-polimi-DOT-it)
Start:	As soon as possible
Number of students:	2-3
CFU:	2.5-15

Machine Learning

Title:	Reinforcement Learning Competition
Description:	This project has the goal of participating to (and possibly winning ;)) the 2009 Reinforcement Learning competition. To have an idea of what participate to such a competition means you can have a look at the website of the 2008 RL competition. The problems that will be proposed are still unknown. As soon as the domains will be published, the work will start by analyzing their main characteristics and, then we will identify which RL algorithms are most suited for solving such problems. After an implementation phase, the project will required a long experimental period to tune the parameters of the learning algorithms in order to improve the performance as much as possible.
Tutor:	Marcello Restelli (restelli-AT-elet-DOT-polimi-DOT-it)
Start:	January, 2009
Number of students:	2-4
CFU:	10-20

Robotics

Title:	Robot games
Description:	The goal of this activity is to develop an interactive game with robots using commercial devices such as the WII Mote (see the Robogames page) Projects are available in different areas: Design and implementation of the game on one of the available robots Design of the game and a new suitable robot Implementation/setting of a suitable robot Evaluation of the game with users (in collaboration with Franca Garzotto) These projects allow to experiment with real mobile robots and real interaction devices. The project can be turned into a thesis by producing a new game and robot.
Tutor:	Andrea Bonarini (bonarini-AT-elet-DOT-polimi-DOT-it)
Start:	Anytime
Number of students:	1-2
CFU:	5-12.5

Title:	Robocup: soccer robots
Description:	The goal of this activity is to finalize the team of robots that will participate to the robocup world championship in Graz next summer (see the Robocup page and the [http://robocup.elet.polimi.it MRT Team page) Projects are available in different areas: Implementation of mechanical and electronical parts of the robots for the management of the ball and kicking Design of robot behaviors (fuzzy systems) Coordination of robots New sensors These projects allow to experiment with real mobile robots. Participation to the championships is a unique experience (2000 people, with 800 robots playing all sort of games...) The project can be turned into a thesis by facing different problems in depth.
Tutor:	Andrea Bonarini (bonarini-AT-elet-DOT-polimi-DOT-it), Marcello Restelli (restelli-AT-elet-DOT-polimi-DOT-it)
Start:	Anytime
Number of students:	1-2
CFU:	5-12.5