Connected Minds: From Idea to Impact
This summer, YFile examines how 91ÑÇÉ«-led researchers move ideas into impact through the Connected Minds Prototyping Awards. This series shows innovation in practice – how socially responsible technologies are tested in real-world settings and how this work drives meaningful change.
From buttoning a shirt to turning a doorknob, people rely on their hands to perform countless tasks every day. Yet, despite the importance of the human hand, studying how people learn and perform these movements is challenging for researchers.
Traditional methods of tracking hand movements are often expensive, time-consuming and require participants to wear uncomfortable sensors or reflective markers. These techniques often interfere with the natural hand movements researchers attempt to study, rendering the results as ineffective.
At 91ÑÇÉ«, researchers are addressing this challenge through the development of ATHENA (Automatically Tracking Hands Expertly with No Annotations), an AI-powered motion-tracking system that captures natural hand movements without requiring markers, sensors or wearable devices.
The project is led by Jonathan Michaels, assistant professor at the School of Kinesiology and Health Science, alongside Daanish (Dan) Mulla, a postdoctoral fellow and lead researcher on the project.
"We wanted a way to measure natural hand movement as it actually happens, without attaching anything to the person," says Michaels.
Using synchronized video from multiple low-cost cameras and machine-learning algorithms, ATHENA captures footage of a person to map their hand, body and face movements in three dimensions. This open-source software removes the barriers associated with traditional motion capture systems by eliminating costs and tedious setup requirements while upholding accurate measurements.
In validation studies, ATHENA was tested against traditional marker-based technology commonly considered the gold standard in movement science. The results showed strong accuracy across a range of tasks, from simple reaching and grasping to handling objects such as mugs, books, pens and tools.
Ultimately, the team hopes ATHENA will become a tool for those seeking to better understand how people move, learn new skills and recover from injury.
Now fully functional and freely available to researchers, ATHENA’s success moving from concept to real-world application was driven in part by the Connected Minds Prototyping Award.
The award is designed to support prototype developments aligned with the mandate of Connected Minds, a multi-million-dollar transdisciplinary research initiative led by 91ÑÇÉ« and Queen’s universities that explores the bridge between emerging technology, public health and social justice.
Funding for ATHENA enabled the team to develop portable versions of the system that can be transported and deployed outside the laboratory. These mobile setups have already been used in autism clinics in Israel and the GTA, expanding the tool’s reach beyond traditional research environments.
"The award was instrumental in moving ATHENA from a validated proof-of-concept into a tool that can actually be used out in the world," says Michaels.
Recipients of the award also receive support from other sources and partners. For ATHENA’s team, it fostered a collaboration with 91ÑÇÉ«'s IP Innovation Clinic for guidance on developing a strategy to maximize adoption while keeping it freely available.
By remaining open source, affordable and developed in collaboration with the communities and clinics that use it, Michaels says ATHENA reflects Connected Minds' goal of creating accessible, socially responsible technology.
Through the prototyping process, the team learned that developing a useful technology requires more than proving it works.
"The hardest part of building a useful tool is often not the core idea, but making it robust, easy and trustworthy enough that other people will actually adopt it," says Michaels.
Navigating the challenges of moving from controlled laboratory environments to clinics and community settings, where lighting conditions vary, people move more freely and privacy considerations become essential, he says.
Because the tool operates entirely without bulky tracking equipment, it can capture movement in more natural settings and offer a more comfortable experience for participants. The comfort and ability to track naturalistic movements translates well with respect to ATHENA's most promising application in health care and clinical research.
An example of this is a collaboration with the Freud Lab at 91ÑÇÉ« where researchers are using ATHENA to study how children move during activities such as building with LEGO. The goal is to identify patterns that could support earlier and more objective identification of autism and other neurodevelopmental conditions.
Michaels says plans are underway to expand ATHENA's capabilities, such as integrating eye tracking, object tracking and multi-person tracking. And, by working with additional clinical and educational partners, the team hopes to broaden adoption while maintaining the platform's open-source model.
"Our goal is for ATHENA to become a broadly used, trusted and freely available resource that helps the research and clinical community better understand human dexterity and improve lives," says Michaels.