Friday November 29, 2013 – 7:30 p.m. at the Almonte United Church Social Hall
Speaker: Rafik Goubran
Topic: Sensor Technologies for Monitoring Daily Living Activities
Synopsis:
Technology can play a positive role in improving our quality of life especially as we age. We all know the role that technology can play in improving our mobility (wheelchairs or walker), cognition (reminders) and in monitoring our vital signs (blood-pressure or glucose meters). This talk will address the role of technology in monitoring our daily living activities to detect any deviations from our normal thresholds. Analyzing these changes can lead to the early detection of some diseases and to the prevention of some conditions (falls).
The lecture will demonstrate some pressure-sensitive technology to monitor our sleep quality, our breathing characteristics and our bed exit routine. It will describe the concept of microphone arrays and its use in monitoring cough and snoring. It will also describe some novel sensor technologies such as electronic noses that can smell and accelerometers that can detect our physical activities.
Speaker’s Profile:
Rafik Goubran received the Ph.D. degree in Electrical Engineering from the Department of Systems and Computer Engineering, Carleton University in 1987. He is now the Dean of the Faculty of Engineering and Design at Carleton.
Dr. Goubran was involved in several research projects with industry and government organizations. His main research expertise is in the area of signal processing. He led many research projects in the areas of sensors, data analytics, security, microphone arrays, speech processing, and the design of smart homes for the independent living of seniors. His research covers the areas of feature extraction, pattern recognition, noise cancellation, and classification.
He has co-authored over 200 papers and 12 patents. He has co-supervised 18 PhD and 60 Master’s students. Dr. Goubran was the founding Director of the Ottawa-Carleton Institute for Biomedical Engineering from 2006 to 2009 and the Chair of the Council of Ontario Deans of Engineering from 2009 to 2011.
Dr. Goubran is an IEEE Fellow and a CAE Fellow. He is now a member of the executive committee of the Global Engineering Deans Council and a member of the Board of Directors of the National Medical Devices Alliance.
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