US-Egypt Cooperative Research: Development of Three-Dimensional Human-Computer Interface System using Holography

University Of California-Irvine, Irvine CA

Investigators

Abstract

0001566 Alexopoulos Description: This award is to support a collaborative project by Dr. Nicolaos Alexopoulos, Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering and Dean of the School of Engineering, University of California, Irvine, California, and Dr. Esmat Abdel Fattah Abdallah, Professor, the Electronics Research Institute, Cairo, Egypt. The scientists have done work to develop a prototype for 3D interactive device (3D mouse) with significant results. The idea depends on two techniques, first, generate a point source hologram from a transmitting antenna that will be attached to the operator's hand to detect its movements. A receiving microstrip array antenna acts as the mouse's pad to record this point. Secondly constructing and displaying this point is done by computer holography system. This project is seeking to enhance the 3D image time recording process by using array of microstrip antennas and applying electronic scanning, to increase the image accuracy by decreasing the operating wavelength, and to enhance the speed of image retrieval by using high performance computing system to reach real or even reasonable data acquisition time. Scope: The US PI and the Egyptian collaborator have extensive experience in this area of research, that is towards the creation of 3D mouse using holography and microstrip antennae. The present research is a logical extension of their past work. This work is likely to make advances in virtual reality (VR) and machine-human interface. The two teams complement each other. One US graduate student at UC Irvine will participate in this collaboration. This proposal meets the INT objective of supporting collaborative research in areas of mutual interest. This project is being supported under the US-Egypt Joint Fund Program, which provides grants to scientists and engineers in both countries to carry out these cooperative activities.