Ville Rantanen received the György Striker Junior Paper Award in IMEKO World Congress
Ville Rantanen from the Department of Automation Science and Engineering received an award at a measurement technology congress organised by IMEKO. The award was given for his study “Capacitive Facial Activity Measurement” that presented a method for the measurement of the human face.
International Measurement Confederation (abbreviated IMEKO from Internationale Meßtechnische Konföderation) is an international measurement technology organisation that has member organisations from 39 countries. Finland is represented by the Finnish Society of Automation. IMEKO was founded in 1958, and it is run by volunteers chosen from its member organisations. In addition to other activities, IMEKO organises a triennial World Congress, where researchers can present their research on measurement technology. On 9-14 September, the 20th World Congress was held in Busan, Republic of Korea.
An award from the founder and the first president of IMEKO, the late György Striker, and his wife is given in the World Congress. The award is called György Striker Junior Paper Award and it is given to a to a junior author under 35 years of age, whose paper reflects a deep understanding of measurement technology. This year the award was given for the 8th time, and its amount was 2000 USD. Ville Rantanen was the first Finn to receive the award.
Ville Rantanen's was awarded for his study “Capacitive Facial Activity Measurement”. It presented a new method that uses a wearable prototype device to measure facial activity that includes movements and expressions of the face. The measurement is capacitive which is an electrical measurement that does not require physical contact to the measurement target. A total of 22 measurement signals that are dependent on facial movements are recorded and processed to analyse facial activity. In the study, the analysis was done to locate simple facial movements to the correct locations on the faces of voluntary participants. Practical applications for the facial activity measurement are human-computer interaction, in which the measured information can be used to control computers, and behavioural science, in which it can help to analyse human behaviour. The study is a part of the postgraduate studies of Ville Rantanen in the field of measurement technology. Rantanen is working on his doctor of science thesis at the Department of Automation Science and Engineering. The completion of the thesis work is expected to happen in the autumn of 2013.
This study was financed by Nokia Research Center and Tekes (the Finnish Funding Agency for Technology and Innovation). Ville Rantanen has been supported by personal grants from Nokia Foundation, Finnish Automation Foundation, and Finnish Cultural Foundation. The study included collaboration with the School of Information Sciences from the University of Tampere.
V. Rantanen, P. Kumpulainen, H. Venesvirta, J. Verho, O. Špakov, J. Lylykangas, A. Vetek, V. Surakka, and J. Lekkala, “Capacitive facial activity measurement,” in Proceedings of the XX IMEKO World Congress, (Busan, South Korea), September 2012.