INSENSION - Personalised intelligent platform enabling interaction with digital services to individuals with profound and multiple learning disabilities

INSENSION was a 3-year research and innovation project carried out within the ICT-23-2017 call of the EU's Horizon 2020 programme, aimed at enabling access to digital services for people with profound and multiple learning disabilities (PIMD) who are unable to interact using symbolic means of communication. Individuals affected by PIMD are often immobile or have severely restricted mobility, with profound and multiple sensory impairment combined with profound intellectual impairment, and are frequently unable to produce conventional gestures, vocalisations or eye-gaze signals to communicate needs.

The project aimed to design, develop and validate an ecological method for sampling non-symbolic behavioural signalling of people with PIMD; develop technology to recognise this signalling and interpret user 'intent'; build an ICT-based interaction platform capable of personalised detection of signalling behaviours; develop example services demonstrating the platform in real-life scenarios; and develop business models for practical exploitation.

INSENSION is an online platform that recognises users' body and facial movements (among other signals) and translates them into intentional commands that can be used to operate devices and communicate with others. It was developed by a six-partner consortium spanning Poland, Germany, Slovenia and Spain, combining research institutes, an assistive-technology SME and a disability-support NGO.