MMI and The New Delft Experience Lab

The mission of the Man-Machine Interaction (MMI) Group of Delft University of Technology (Faculty EEMCS, Department of Mediamatics) is to engineer effective experiences with multi-modal interaction between human and artificial actors in a dynamic, social context. In order to properly test these experiences, we constructed the New Delft Experience Lab.

The New Delft Experience Lab is a multifunctional and flexible lab that allows for a large range of psychophysical and behavioral experiments and user tests. The space is flexible in size, with an advanced lighting system that allows for individual control of 32 lights.

Experiments at the New Delft Experience Lab are related to research themes that are part of the Smart Environment Lab-Delft (SEL-D) Scientific Programme:

• Collaboration at a distance, with an emphasis on presence
• Modeling and simulating crisis management
• Telecare
• Perception and Interaction
• Intention tracking
• Information presentation
• Computer Vision
• Dependable artificial partners
• Cognitive engineering
• Artificial Intelligence

The New Delft Experience Lab can be found on the 12th floor of the EWI-building, rooms 12.140, 12.150 and 12.160.



Plan of the New Delft Experience Lab

Current and future experiments at the New Delft Experience Lab

• Visual space through panoramic displays
• Gaze tracking
• Image quality
• Recording of speech for lip-reading
• Coordination of the evacuation of walking wounded
• Human-robot interaction
• Auditory perception
• Negotiations

3TU, NIRICT and SEL-D

NIRICT is the center for all ICT-related research of the three technical universities (3TU) within the Netherlands. Within NIRICT, research themes are organized in Strategic Research Agenda's (SRA). The SRA Multimedia and Interaction represents a large number of research groups on man-machine interaction, graphics, artificial intelligence, image and video processing, and distributed systems. The research facilities of these groups are brought together within the 3TU Smart Environment Lab (3TU SEL) with local facilities in Delft (SEL-D), Eindhoven (SEL-E) and Twente (SEL-T). The labs located in Delft, Eindhoven and Twente contribute to solving the main challenges posed in the SRA Multimedia and Interaction in the NIRICT plan 2008-2012.

The New Delft Experience Lab is part of the SEL-D lab infrastructure with contributions from several groups and labs from the faculty of Electrical Engineering, Mathematics and Computer Science (EEMCS) and the faculty of Industrial Design Engineering (IDE). SEL-D includes, among others, the MMI New Delft Experience Lab, 3D lab, Audio Space, VR Graphics Lab, Embedded Software Lab and P2P Networks with EEMCS and the User Interface Lab, Studio Home, Product Sound Design and Perception Lab, Visual Psychophysic Lab, and the Mobile "lab" facilities from IDE.

The aim of SEL-D is to provide an experimental environment to develop and test technologies for interactive and intelligent appliances and systems.

Smart Environments

A growing variety of consumer and professional products is being equipped with sensors, data storage capacity, information processing technology, actuators and new display technologies. Advancements in network and wireless communication technology begin to make it feasible to connect such products into smart environments that can sense and reason about user intentions, experiences and emotions in a natural setting and react and anticipate accordingly. It is envisaged that in such smart environments humans will be continuously connected to each other and information will be available anytime everywhere.

The development of smart environments makes it necessary to focus increasingly on creating products and environments that can collaborate symbiotically with humans to enhance human capabilities well outside the range of normal biological variation. Such symbiotic collaborations amplifying human capabilities imply a shift from user-friendliness to a human-centered design approach, with user context playing a key role.

This human-centered approach to developing smart environments poses serious challenges to a large diversity of new and existing technologies. To solve these challenges, environments have to be created in which human-centered technologies can be explored and investigated in a multidisciplinary way. This awareness has led to the idea of creating the Smart Environment Labs (SEL) within the NIRICT.

Contact Information

Delft University of Technology (TU-Delft)
Faculty of Electrical Engineering, Mathematics, and Computer Science (EEMCS)
Man-Machine Interaction Group

Correspondence address:
T +31 (0) 15 278 4145
F +31 (0) 15 278 7141
P.O. Box 5031
2600 GA, DELFT, The Netherlands

For more information please contact:
Dr. Harold Nefs, T +31 (0) 15 278 3630, h.t.nefs_AT_tudelft.nl
Prof. dr. Catholijn Jonker, T. + 31 (0) 15 278 1315. c.m.jonker_AT_tudelft.nl

Website: http://mmi.tudelft.nl/experiencelab

Visiting address:
Delft University of Technology, Faculty of EEMCS
Mekelweg 4
2628 CD, DELFT, The Netherlands

The New Delft Experience Lab can be found on the 12th floor, rooms 12.140, 12.150 and 12.160.