Intelligent Human-Machine System (IHMS) Lab

About us:

The Intelligent Human-Machine Systems (IHMS) Laboratory was founded by Professor Yingzi Lin at Northeastern University in August 2005, and it has been growing rapidly ever since. As part of their research, Professor Lin and her lab members aim to address the following questions:

What if machines can recognize and respond to human physical states and/or emotions?
How much can intelligent machines assist and improve human daily life?
And how much better would life be if we can develop advanced physical state and/or emotion sensing technologies that seem effortless to users?

At the Intelligent Human-Machine Systems (IHMS) Laboratory, we are working hard to find such creative solutions, and to develop intelligent systems that assist and interact with human operators in more natural, friendly, and efficient ways. Generally, we have defined the following objectives for the IHMS lab:

To design and develop non-intrusive physiological sensors using advanced MEMS/NANO technology;
To develop realistic simulation environments that will provide more accurate, applicable data;
To work on the fusion of physical and physiological signals, as well as general human behaviors in order to infer people’s mental and physical states which can lead to more appropriate feedback;
To develop novel human machine interfaces, allowing interface access to injured/disabled operators;
To explore and create novel human assistance systems that will function as mediators between machines and human operators — providing intelligent human-machine interaction.

The projects we work on vary greatly in their nature. At the IHMS lab, we not only focus on the technology behind the intelligent machine systems; but we also pay attention to people’s needs and limitations. This allows us to design intelligent systems for people which can be applied to diverse areas, such as healthcare, transportation, and communication. We believe that technology should work for people, not the other way around. To show some examples, some of our recent projects were focused on:

Developing intelligent materials that can be used to infer operator states through the sensing of physiological parameters;
Developing mathematical models to quantify the perceived aesthetic of computer interfaces, and to determine how aesthetics can affect usability and performance;
Recognizing facial expressions and the way they are linked to emotional states, in order to model human-like facial expressions in computer interfaces;
Developing alternative computer interfaces to enable people with physical disabilities, and to benefit them through the implementation of physical therapy practices;
Developing virtual realities that provide more realistic scenarios that subjects will react to as they would in real life;
Researching driving behavior, performance, and habits in order to develop intelligent Driving Assistance Systems (DAS) aimed at actively increasing driving safety;
Exploring and creating novel human-computer interfaces by applying Encephalography (EEG) signals to facilitate affective computing.

Thank you for your interest in our lab! Please use the tabs in the navigation bar on the top right to visit the different pages of our lab, where you can read more about our research, publications, members, projects, facilities.

Networked driving simulators:

Major apparatus:

Biosensors:

Professor Yingzi Lin

Office: 357 Snell Engineering Center

Phone: (617)373-8610

Fax: (617)373-2921

E-mail: yi.lin@northeastern.edu

Website: lin-yingzi.northeastern.edu

Mailing Address: 334 Snell Engineering Center, Mechanical and Industrial Engineering Department, College of Engineering, Northeastern University, 360 Huntington Avenue, Boston, MA 02115, USA

Intersted in joining in the IHMS lab?

Please contact Professor Yingzi Lin if you are interested in our research. We are always interested in highly motivated and dedicated researchers including undergraduate, graduate students, Post-doctoral and visiting fellows. Researchers and students with excellent background or strong element in human factors, human-machine systems, adaptive interface design, noninvasive human physiology sensing and human state detection, multi-modality information fusion, affective intelligent machine system design, and broad area of intelligent human-machine system interaction, are encouraged to apply. To apply, please send a detailed resume and list of publications (if available) to Professor Lin.