Best Presentation Award (July 2019)

Improving Maintenance Efficiency with an Adaptive AR-assisted Maintenance System, C.Y. Siew, A.Y.C. Nee, and S.K. Ong, ACM–2019 The 4th International Conference on Robotics, Control and Automation (ICRCA 2019), 26th to 28th July 2019, Guangzhou, China.

Champion, HILTI IT Competition (March 2018)

HILTI IT 2018 competition with the theme Augmented Reality (AR) and Internet of Things (IoT) in the Construction Industry was held on March 26-29 2018 in KL, Malaysia. The ARAT Laboratory Team from NUS with PhD students under my supervision beat 146 teams worldwide to clinch the championship. Their entry showcased the application of finite element (FE) and augmented reality (AR) to achieve a real-time visualization of structural deformation due to external forces. HILTI is in discussion with my lab on the adoption of my research patent on AR in FEA as well as technologies on AR in product design, assembly and maintenance in their company. Details can be found here: http://me.nus.edu.sg/news/nus-team-beats-146-teams-worldwide-to-win-2018-hilti-it-competition/.

Second Highest Cited Paper in Advances in Manufacturing Journal in 2017 (June 2018)

Advances in Manufacturing (AIM), a newly established Springer journal in manufacturing technology and materials research, has been indexed in 2017 with an Impact Factor of 1.706. The Editorial Office honored the contribution of highly cited paper authors and hosted a ceremony in Shanghai, China on 25 June 2018, with presentation of certificates containing the following citation:
Among the papers published in Advances in Manufacturing during 2015-2016, your paper entitled “A comprehensive survey of augmented reality assembly research” published in Adv in Manuf (2016) 4:1-22, based on Web of Science citation count, is the second highest cited paper in 2017..

Providing the elderly with navigation assistance (Jan 2010)

A PLATFORM employing Augmented Reality (AR) is in the offing to help elderly pedestrians find their way around, detect obstacles and be aware of the dynamics in their environment. The NUS Engineering team developing this platform, recently received a grant from the Mitsui Sumitomo Insurance Welfare Foundation (MSIWF).

Prof Andrew Nee and Assoc Prof Ong Soh Khim lead the team comprising Ms Shen Yan, Research Engineer and Ms Zhang Jie, Research Fellow, at the Department of Mechanical Engineering. Their project entitled “AR-enhanced Navigation Assistance Systems” (ARENA) aims to address daily problems that senior citizens often faced. AR is an emerging technique which can overlay information over a real scene, in the form of text, graphics, video or voice.

Prof Nee who is also Director, Division of Research Administration with the NUS Office of Deputy President (Research & Technology) and Assoc Prof Ong, recipient of the Society of Women Engineers’ 2009 Emerging Leader Award in the field of Academia, have been researching AR in helping the elderly and the disabled for the past five years.

Senior citizens may often suffer from some form of memory loss and visual degeneration and elderly road users may encounter dangers leading to injuries if they fail to detect dynamic changes on the road. Their project aims to address these problems by incorporating computer vision and sensor fusion technologies to be embodied in an AR enhanced environment. The system analyses the information detected by the camera and sensors — and renders the synthesised information and instructions to the users in real time.

“The system will help senior citizens live more independently and actively without worrying about getting lost and becoming helpless. Besides their safety, it will also promote their self confidence and dignity,” said Prof Nee at the MSIWF award ceremony on 12 January 2010.

Since its establishment in 1975, the MSIWF has awarded grants annually, supporting research on senior citizen welfare and traffic safety. The grant is the first and only Asia-wide research grant focusing on traffic safety that is offered by a private company.

 
The team (from left), Ms Shen Yan, Ms Zhang Jie, Assoc Prof Ong and Prof Nee with Mr Yasuhiro Imamura, Executive Director of MSIWF at the Award ceremony.

Samsung DigitAll Hope 2005 Award – Special keyboard for the elderly and disabled

A team from the Department of Mechanical Engineering led by Associate Professor Ong Soh Khim and Professor Andrew Nee has won the Samsung DigitAll Hope 2005 for their project Augmented Reality Assistive Keyboard. They share the prize, a grant of US$500,000 with 11 others from Southeast Asia and Australia.

SAMSUNG WINNER: Clockwise from left: Ms Zhang Jie, NUS researcher; Mr Sang-Jin Park, Regional CEO and President, Samsung Asia; Dr Vivian Balakrishnan, Minister for Community, Youth and Sports and Second Minister for Trade and Industry; Associate Professor Ong Soh Khim, NUS and Ms Shen Yan, NUS researcher.

The team has invented a device which marries Assistive and Augmented Reality technologies, to help the elderly and disabled use full computer functions in composing and sending emails, control household appliances, such as television sets and lights. Assistive technology is used in devices like writing aids for those with difficulty in moving their hands and fingers for example, allowing limited movements of limbs to operate certain equipment. Augmented Reality (AR) technology allows the overlay of virtual information onto a real scene through the use of computer − providing augmented information in the form of interactive media, such as texts, computer graphics and video clips, customised to the user’s needs.

The NUS team’s invention which is equiped with a head-mounted device with cameras and special eye-glasses, enables users to control target electronic gadgets through a virtual keyboard by just turning their heads from side to side. The technology developed by the team will also help physically-disabled students participate in mainstream schools, allowing them to better integrate into society.

“With Samsung DigitAll Hope’s funding, we can customise the Augmented Reality Assistive Keyboard for different applications. We envision the project to be useful to individuals with disabilities to carry out their daily tasks and we hope to bring it to users in other countries as a useful assistive tool,” said Associate Professor Ong who is also a Nominated Member of Parliament.