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Perception & Activity Understanding

The research group on the understanding of perception and activity conducts research analyses of human activities from multimodal data.

The analysis of human activities from multimodal data is useful for surveillance, behavior analysis, human–robot interfaces, and multimedia content analysis. This includes investigating the fundamental tasks of scene analysis such as detection, segmentation and tracking of people, their representation, and the characterization of their condition, as well as the modeling of sequential data and their interpretation in the form of gestures, activities, behavior, or social relationships, through the design of sound algorithms which exploit and extend models and methods of computer vision, machine learning, and multimodal data-fusion. Surveillance, traffic analysis, analysis of behavior, human-robot interfaces, and multimedia content analysis are the main application domains.

Group News

Multiple International Awards Secured by Idiap in June 2026

research — Jun 23, 2026

June 2026 has emerged as a period of great success at Idiap, with the Institute receiving several prestigious international distinctions across the fields of human–computer interaction, computer vision, robotics, and advanced industrial technologies.

Idiap and OPPAL Association Launch WolfCam to Reduce Human–Wolf Conflict

research — Feb 11, 2026

As wolf populations continue to expand across European mountain regions and into surrounding lowland areas, generating renewed challenges for both wildlife conservation and pastoral activities, the Idiap Research Institute and the OPPAL Association have joined forces to develop a non-lethal monitoring solution designed to prevent livestock predation.

Anshul Gupta Awarded EPFL PhD Distinction

research — Dec 12, 2025

Idiap PhD graduate Anshul Gupta has received the 2025 PhD Thesis Distinction in Electrical Engineering (EDEE) from EPFL.

AI & Gaze: Enabling Enhanced Societal Applications

research — Jul 16, 2025

Gaze is a fundamental indicator of attention and interest, and a non-verbal cue involved in communication and social signaling, a key element across various domains such as human-computer interaction, robotics, and medical diagnosis, notably in Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD) assessment. Researchers at Idiap have developed AI systems that significantly improve 3D gaze estimation in real-world environments, enabling gaze-aware systems to operate in such situations.

User-friendly Robot Empowers Individuals with Mobility Disability

research — Feb 27, 2025

Robots designed to empower people with mobility disabilities are complex and difficult to adopt, as they require sophisticated movements to complete even basic tasks. At Idiap, researchers have developed a software that allows the robot to adapt to the unique needs of these people to provide a user-friendly experience.

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