Past Projects

Auto-Motive

Auto-Motive was developed during 2014 and 2015 for the NHS by a consortium including the Universities of Cardiff and Warwick, Bipolar UK and Halliday James Ltd under an SBRI Phase 3 grant. The objective of the project was to develop a technology driven system to facilitate the self-management of Bipolar Disorder. The University, through the Brain and Behaviour Lab, were primarily responsible for the data analysis portions of the project due to our past involvement with Bipolar Disorder.

The Auto-Motive system uses an app on the user’s smartphone and from sensors embedded in or linked to the phone to gather data that are pertinent to the user’s mental health state. Sensors include room occupancy and usage sensors as well as physical activity monitor, usually in the form of a commercially available fitness band or smartwatch. In addition to objective sensors, subjective mood data were gathered from the smartphone app.

Data from the system were analysed to detect and predict trends in the data related to mental health and to alert the user when adverse trends were identified. Alerts, as well as historical data, could be viewed from the app and the user could email data to selected recipients, allowing the user complete control of their data.
Auto-Motive has been evaluated by a group of people with bipolar who are experienced self-managers. Their feedback will be incorporated into the next version of the app.

USEFIL

The Unobtrusive Smart Environments For Independent Living (USEFIL) project was an EU FP7 funded project that ran between 2011 and 2014, on which the University of Warwick, through the Brain and Behaviour Lab was a key partner. The aims of the project were address the gap between technological research advances and the practical needs of older people by developing advanced but affordable in-home unobtrusive monitoring and web communication solutions. Through the use of low cost "off-the-shelf" technology USEFIL intended to develop immediately applicable services to assist older people in maintaining their independence and daily activities. The USEFIL system aimed at high degrees of unobtrusiveness and ease of installation in the user’s home in order to integrate smoothly with the user’s life.

The USFIL system also developed a platform, upon which applications can be added or subtracted with no real limit to the overall number of services offered. Applications such as social and communication support; electronic health records; and multi-user diaries were designed for the USEIL platform.

In addition to the platform USEFIL included the development of wearable technologies and utilised an off-the-shelf smart-watch to provide ambulatory monitoring and ancillary functions. This was termed the Wrist Wearable Unit (WWU) and was developed at the University of Warwick in conjunction with the Brain and Behaviour Lab. The WWU provided physical activity monitoring; messaging and alerting capability; and device interoperability with Bluetooth devices. From development in USEFIL the WWU has formed a central point of ongoing research in the Brain and Behaviour Lab.