EU-MARCUS - Mobile augmented reality and context in urban settings

The goal of this proposal is to create a multi-institutional collaborative research on how mobile augmented reality and context aware applications can be used to enhance the urban experience. Augmented Reality (AR) overlays virtual imagery in the real world, and combined with context information is ideal for interactive urban applications. The exchange supports the existing EU funded IPCity program and enables EU and New Zealand (NZ) researchers to collaborate on the IPCity effort and similar projects. It will strengthen existing ties between 3 EU institutions and 2 NZ universities. The EU institutions are: -Fraunhofer-Institute for Applied Information Technology FIT, Germany -Graz University of Technology-Institute for Computer Graphics and Vision ICG, Austria -Helsinki University of Technology-Helsinki Institute for Information Technology HIIT, Finland while the NZ partners are: -University of Canterbury-HIT Lab NZ - University of Otago-Information Science Department The exchange will take place over 3 years and will have 12 researchers from 3 EU institutions exchanging with 9 researchers from 2 NZ institutions. Researchers from each institution will participate in 2 dedicated workshops together with all participating exchanging researchers from local institutions. The focus of this exchange is on continued collaboration between the EU institutions working on mobile AR and New Zealand institutions with complementary experience.
The overall goals of the research are:
- To develop a strategic research relationship in mobile AR and context awareness
- To enhance the existing relationship between the IPCity EU partners and NZ institutions
- To undertake collaborative research in mobile AR and context awareness
- To facilitate extended joint research periods for EU and NZ researchers
- To transfer technology between institutions and undertake joint technology development
- To explore future joint research and funding opportunities in mobile AR research