internship | Development of real-time posture monitoring algorithm based printed pressure sensor data.

The aim of this student project is to create an algorithm to monitor the posture of a sitting person in an office environment in real time. This is done in an unobtrusive manner via the usage of flexible pressure sensors on the chair surface. The first step in this research would be to create more insight in sitting postures, to understand which different postures are important to be recognized. Secondly data gather experiments are done to create a dataset of data using both the pressure mats as well as a reference sensor. When the data is obtained an algorithm needs to be created which would be able to detect a person, classify which posture this person currently has and monitor changes over time. This probably needs to be done using a supervised machine learned algorithm in python. It is important that correlations can be found between the outcome of the algorithm and its biomedical meaning, as well as the importance of sensor placement locations.

You are an ambitious master student with both scientific and practical skills looking for an internship or master thesis of at least 6-9 months. You have a biomedical science or applied science background, with knowledge in the fields of data acquisition, biomedical signal analysis and programming (preferably in the field of machine learning). You are pro-active and independent, and a good team player. Good communication skills in English is expected.
You will be part of a motivating and enthusiastic team on non-contact sensing. Your tasks and responsibilities include:

• Background/literature research on posture of an office worker in a chair
• Creating and performing measurement for data gathering
• Creation of real time algorithm to analyze pressure data in python
• Testing/evaluating created algorithms in terms of performance
• Evaluate the outcome to give feedback on sensor placements
• Participate in group meetings, provide feed-back, discuss results, and propose solutions to various challenging aspects
• Write technical internship report

TNO is an independent research organization whose expertise and research make an important contribution to the competitiveness of companies and organizations, to the economy and to the quality of society as a whole. Innovation with purpose is what TNO stands for. Within the Hybrid Printed Electronics group one of the things we develop is flexible printed sensor techniques. You will be working within a multidisciplinary team with a broad variety of backgrounds.

    
You want to work on the precursor of your career; an internship gives you an opportunity to take a good look at your prospective future employer. TNO goes a step further. It’s not just looking that interests us; you and your knowledge are essential to our innovation. That’s why we attach a great deal of value to your personal and professional development. You will, of course, be properly supervised during your internship and be given the scope for you to get the best out of yourself. Naturally, we provide suitable internship compensation.