Reconciling Disability and Independence is the major issue which the SYSIASS project sought to answer by developing new technologies and putting them in the service of patients and health professionals from our regions. Advances in technology proposed by SYSIASS have been realized in practice through an intelligent wheelchair. The main objective of the project was to help people using a powered wheelchair to improve their mobility by developing an navigation assistance device and proposing novel human-machine interfaces for driving the wheelchair for those users who cannot use a joystick or other standard input devices. Another objective was to comunicate data between the wheelchair and its environment in a secure way. The proposed devices are plugged into comercial wheelchairs in UK and France.
It was important to design and develop devices which could be use by the largest number of end-users. Most of the time, the disabled people have multiple-handicap, physical and cognitives. It is thus indispensable to develop human-machine interfaces as well us assisted navigation devices adapted to the specificity of the handicap of every person.

The first activity foccused on the assisted navigation devices. An on-line survey helped us to define, in consideration of the user's needs and expectations, the level of help that each device has to provide to the user. Three levels of help were identified: low level ensuring only the user's safety, a mid-level ensuring safety and providing some help to the user for safe driving and a high-level help where the device provides autonomous navigation. For each device, we specified the sensors to be used and developed the electronic boards, data processing and control algorithms. The final version of the first two devices have been tested by the user via clinical trials in France and UK.

Activity 2 focussed on secure communication. As originally envisaged, the activity has successfully demonstrated that secure communication to and from a mobile platform such as a wheelchair may be achieved using characteristics derived from the operating characteristics of the platform itself. The evaluation of the techniques has involved several distinct platforms and robust testing of the technology has been undertaken.

The third activity focused on implementing human-machine interfaces (HMI) for people who cannot drive the wheelchair using the joystick. After the definition of the specificities and functionalities of the multi-modal human-machine interfaces, different kind of HMI have been implemented and the performances tested in a laboratory environment. In the first step, HMIs using only one type of signal were implemented: voice, head movement, facial movement (EMG), tongue mouvement. After, by fusing audio and video data an improved head gesture based HMI was provided. By fusing video and EMG signals the EMG based HMI was improved. The last step was the integration of head gesture and facial expression using a single low cost sensor (named Emotiv EPOC) to obtain a novel bi-modal HMI. The driving of these new interfaces have been tested by healthy people in a laboratory environment.

We developed devices for assisted navigation and the two final solutions have been tested by users with brain injury and motor impairment through clinical trials in France and the UK. 5. Although outside the time of the project (clinical evaluation held in September 2014), user feedback for the evaluation of the 2nd prototype at EKHUFT was positive with all participants asking to be involved in any further developments. HMIs using different type of inputs have been developed and tested by healthy people: voice, facial gesture, head movement and tongue movement. Further work has begun to investigate RFID wireless technology: to sense the stretch on skin (neck/eybrow movement) and tongue position in the mouth. 6 powered wheelchairs are now available for demonstrating the technologies developed during the project. For the secure data communication, an experimental platform has build to proove the effectivness of the ICmetrics approach.

The main target groups are the disabled people who participated in the evalutions, the healthcare community and the project partners and collaborators. The final beneficiaries will be users who cannot use a powered wheelchair beacause they do not have either sufficient cognitive or physical ability to drive safely. This system can help them regain independent mobility. Additionally users and carer will benefit from improved quaity of life because of increased user independence. Other beneficiaries are the companies who could develop new products based on the the project proptotype developed. The companies may benefit from the improved mobility and independance of the users, by making hiring powered wheelchair users more practical. The SYSIASS team also benefited. The closing conference was an excellent example of showing how the French and UK stakeholders collaborated on the project and the benefits of that collaboration.

The universities and hospitals involved in the project from our teritories increased their expertise in multidisciplinary research. The project enabled research students to participate actively to the project activities, to gainexperience in working across borders and improving their technical skills in a very challenging field where the interaction with the end users is mandatory.

For the territory involved, the project has brought the issue of assisted mobility into focus at a regional level, allowing interested parties such as users of powered wheelchairs, their carers, prescribers and providers of powered wheelchairs to be made aware of the potential benefits of the technology. The user trials undertaken have been extremely helpful in bringing users needs into sharper focus, allowing the technology to be driven by their needs which is essential if the uptake of the technology is to be significant. Another important group are the prescribers as they must appreciate the potential of the technology if they are to advocate its use to their patients. The project has integrated prescribers at EKHUFT, GHICL, Hospital of Garches, La vie devant soi and Centre Hélène Borel within the evaluation and dissemination process to allow them to be acquainted with the potential advantages for their patients.

The best example of the added-value of cross border cooperation was the final version of the assisted navigation device. Without the French clinical evaluation and survey it would be very difficult to know the user's needs and response to the 1st version of the prototype. While the French team worked on the 1st version of the prototype, the English team developed the 2nd version. It allowed us to be more reactive and to jointly achieve the final version. Without the good relationship between EKHUFT and Dynamic Controls, and the evidence from the French clinical evaluation, it would have been very difficult to obtain their involvement. The equipment they provided is especially significant as it enables us to access the commercialized powered wheelchair control bus without making any modifications.
The press conference was another example. The joint effort to organize the event, the presence of both English and French stakeholders was essential to attract a large number of journalists.

SYSIASS is one of the project parner of e-UCARE, the strategic Health cluster funded by Interreg IVB NWE. Some partners of SYSIASS are involved in the EDECT and i-MOSYDE clusters funded by Interreg IVA 2 Seas. Sone partners are also invoved in Interreg IVa Trans Manche project - COALAS - which relies on the work carried out by SYSIASS.

The cross border programme is an excellent opportunity to build a network to develop more innovative products with a multidisciplinary and multicultural team. It is also a way to develop strong working relationship and identify common areas of interest and a positive environment in which to learn from different cultural attitudes, helping to understand how and why we operate as well as to learn from similarities. We learnt to work together for a common shared objective. For having a successful project it is essential to have partners sharing the same objective and who believe that there are more benefits to work together in a multicultural context despite of the difficulties. It is very important to take the time to discover and understand the project partners for a good sustainable partnership. A successful project is built on a strong human relationships.

We will, of course, keep the dynamic created by SYSIASS and the excellent partnership we build during those years. All partners continue to disiminate the project results when they have the occasion (SYSIASS was presented several times after end June) and update the website with new informations. A Interreg IVA Trans Manch project - COALAS - is dependent onbuilding on the work of SYSIASS. SYSIASS team members are invovled in COALAS and ensuring that this disemination of ideas in implemented. Two clusters are also on-going, EDECT and i-MOSYDE, bringing part of the team and the knowledges built during the SYSIASS project. The project partners are currently engaged with assistive technology providers Dynamic Controls regarding the practical exploitation of the work for the benefit of users, carers and clinicians within the region.

We are already continue to explore new ways and improve the results of SYSIASS via the clusters in which we are involved and build new partnerships. We also apply for national project calls, involving the crossborder partners. In the UK, we are exploring national funding streams to continue the development work and include colleagues from SYSIASS partner institutions within such applications to ensure continuity of the developed work.

We are going to apply for a new Interreg VA 2 Seas project where we will continue the work started in SYSIASS and continued in EDECT cluster. In fact, the good results obtained during the project and the very useful feedbacks received from the end users and all the stakeholders encourage us to continue in this way, to improve, thanks to end users feedback, the solution already tested during SYSIASS and find new inovative solutions for disabled people which empower them. The excellent partnership built during the project is also a key factor to maintain the desire to follow-up with a new project.