Frontier Advanced Technology Development - Smart Technologies

Smart technologies and intelligent devices impact a wide range of application areas such as: healthcare, industrial automation, smart manufacturing, artificial intelligence, digital health, environmental management, water management, smart cities, to sensors in electronic devices and robotics. Innovations and discoveries in these areas will have a wide range of impact to the socioeconomic development of many sectors and communities across the globe.

Key contact information:

Associate Professor Tan Chee Pin

Assoc. Prof. Tan Chee Pin's primary research interest lies in observers and state estimation (an area in Control Theory), where he developed model-based observer configurations and design methods to accurately estimate the unknown signals in dynamic systems, at the minimum possible cost (e.g. less sensors, less accurate data/model). The estimates of these unknown signals could then be used for condition monitoring, fault diagnosis and prediction of future phenomena, which could result in cost savings, increased productivity, energy savings and prevention of breakdowns - just to name a few benefits. The results of the research can be applied to a wide variety of dynamic systems (machinery, biological systems, and even man-made non-physical systems such as traffic control).

Prof Raphaël Phan

Prof. Raphaël Phan specialises in security & malicious AI. He has led government and industry-funded research projects totaling over RM3million and is actively invited to serve in the technical program committees of peer-reviewed security conferences. He has published over 90 journal papers and in excess of internationally-refereed 120 conference papers. He has Erdős number 2.

Postdoc research directions in this smart technologies priority area focus on advanced forms of AI including explainability, adversarial machine learning, generative adversarial networks, deepfakes, interplay between security & AI, and AI for digital health.

Associate Professor Uma Devi A/P M Palanisamy

Uma is primarily a pre-clinical educationist and researcher, she has been actively involved in health promotion research and education with underserved populations for over 10 years and saw to the development and implementation of numerous student-led health promotion projects. For the 55,000 Deaf Malaysians, healthcare access issues due communication barriers is an important public health issue. A study to identify these barriers at a variety of levels, and to find optimum strategies to integrate their needs into primary health care systems is pertinent. Realising the magnitude of this issue, and the lack of information about this community, she conceptualized the HEARD (HEAlthcare needs of the Deaf) program. She has worked with various Deaf communities in Malaysia and industry in collaborative research. An innovative outcome of this collaboration is the idea of a mHealth app, DITE^TM (Deaf in Touch everywhere). A prototype of the app is in place and requires further evaluation of its acceptability and feasibility and improve its design and development following the WHO Monitoring and Evaluating of Digital Health Interventions 2016 Framework.