Johanna Virkki

• Doctor of Science in Technology
• Tampere University

Smart spaces are ubiquitous computing environments that integrate diverse sensing and communication technologies to enhance space functionality, optimize energy utilization, and improve user comfort and well-being. The integration of emerging AI methodologies into these environments facilitates the formation of AI-driven smart spaces, which further...

Mixed reality (MR) games refer to games that integrate physical entities with digitally mediated contents. Currently, it entails game creators to integrate heterogeneous virtual and physical components, which is often time-consuming and labor-intensive, without the support of a coherent technology stack. The underlying technodiversity manifested by...

Augmentative and alternative communication (AAC) methods aim to enable a variety of interactions and participation for those with complex communication needs. AAC’s benefits are well known. However, many with these unique needs do not have access to these technologies, do not use them to their full potential, or abandon the system for a variety of...

Explore the innovative world of participatory clothing, where technology meets textile design to empower daily living. From defining user needs to fabricating prototypes aimed at enhancing user engagement, delve into the intersection of fashion, function, and user-centric design in this transformative field.

In the recent years triboelectric energy harvesting has gained a lot of research attention, and numerous triboelectric harvester designs have been proposed. We introduce a novel triboelectric energy harvesting architecture, where animal hair is used as the active material with a high positive charge affinity. To induce the triboelectric effect, ani...

This study presents a developmental solution for annotating events, eye-contact, in live interaction scenarios, such as autism research. The approach involves prototyping infrared light emitting diodes (IR LEDs) integrated into both a smart shirt and smart carpets. Leveraging the imperceptibility of IR LEDs to the human eye ensures minimal disturba...

Swallowing difficulty, also known as dysphagia, is a fairly common symptom that may lead to malnutrition, dehydration, pulmonary complications, and a reduced quality of life. Currently, a swallowing evaluation requires a hospital environment, skilled personnel, and expensive devices. Thus, it is important to develop a successful method for evaluati...

Research shows that digital games can engage students in mathematics and enhance their performance. While mathematics teachers see “maths games” as useful tools, their lack of knowledge about teaching with such games as well as shortage of appropriate games for teaching upper secondary school mathematics prevents the full potential of game-based te...

Motivation is an important factor in paediatric speech therapy. Rehabilitation is often long-term work that requires many repetitions and home training with parents. Therefore, one of the most important tasks of paediatric speech-language pathologists (SLPs) is to find different ways, over and over again, to motivate children for training. As diffe...

This study presents development of JOYRIDE, a light-hearted gamified exercise tour, which is built around a mobile robot for Finnish elderly people, who also played with the system in practice. The user testing results, despite the starting challenges during these first testing rounds, can be considered positive: elderly people are willing to welco...

This paper presents the first prototype and proof-of-concept applications of an everyday hat-integrated human-computer interaction (HCI) system for serious games. Copper textile-based electrodes are integrated into a basic hat, and an HCI system is built around OpenBCI Ganglion device. As proof-of-concept applications, focus detection based on elec...

Traumatic brain injury (TBI) results from an injury to the head. Depending on the severity of the injury and the affected regions of the brain, consequences vary a lot. Apart from physical challenges, a person with TBI may have various cognitive deficits, which affect the cognitive load of the person in different situations. The paper presents an e...

Cerebral palsy (CP) is a neurological disorder that primarily affects body movement, muscle coordination, and muscle tone. Non-progressive brain injury or abnormal brain development that occurs while the child’s brain is under development causes CP. It is estimated that 40–85% of children with CP have communication difficulties. Children with commu...

Computational wearables are redefining our presence in the world and transforming our lifestyles by engendering a seamless connection between the wearer and the worn. Despite numerous original studies on the development as well as the current advances of wearables, a systematic review from the standpoint of fashion seems to be lacking. Thus, this s...

In this paper, a smart office chair with movable textile sensors to monitor sitting position during the workday is presented. The system consists of a presence textile capacitive sensor with different levels of activation with a signal conditioning device. The proposed system was integrated into an office chair to detect postures that could provoke...

Purpose: E-textiles have been the focus of interest in health technology, but little research has been done so far on how they could support persons with complex communication needs. A global estimate is that 97 million people may benefit from Augmentative and Alternative Communication (AAC). Unfortunately, despite the growing body of research, ma...

This paper presents early prototypes of textile-based multimodal customizable activators. The prototypes were targeted at turning our ordinary clothing and accessories assistive. The activators are part of a system with a web-based interface that allows the user to tailor the functionalities of the activators. These first prototypes can be activate...

BACKGROUND Mixed reality (MR) game is a general terms to describe games that integrate physical entities with digitally mediated contents. This kind of highly interactive and immersive experience is believed to be the essence of metaverse, and by democratizing the game building, we will approach the future metaverse applications. However, it entail...

Participation and social inclusion influence individuals’ health and well-being. These factors can be easily disturbed, especially for those with disabilities. Designers and engineers have tried harnessing technology to assist people via producing prototypes of assistive devices, such as smart clothing and furniture. This study approaches that user...

This research work is aimed at studying different rock types and the effect of their mineral contents on an active 434 MHz RFID card’s radio signal attenuation. This research was done at the ONKALO nuclear waste storage facility using radio frequency identification (RFID) equipment. First, the studied area and research plan, including the used syst...

This paper presents an early prototype of a passive ultra-high frequency (UHF) radiofrequency identification (RFID) -based control interface. By using two types of gestures, hand tap and body movement, these tags are used as furniture-and clothing-integrated inputs. An extra tag, called a gesture initiator, is integrated into the system to prevent...

In addition to training at the therapists’, an important part of paediatric speech therapy is home practice with parents. The purpose of this study was to investigate the barriers in home practice from the perspective of speech-language pathologists (SLP). Another goal was to gather an understanding on the role of games in speech therapy and how ga...

Purpose The growth of new high-technology devices in the field of augmentative and alternative communication (AAC) has been rapid. However, a vast number of individuals with complex communication needs are left without functional means to communicate in their lives. Intelligent textiles are one of the growing industries in health technologies yet t...

Limitations in physical and cognitive functioning are common among elderly people. Due to these limitations, activities of daily living, such as dressing, can be difficult, even with the help of another person. The limitations may also challenge using the assistive tools meant to support the independent living of elderly people. One significant ass...

In engineering education, and in work life in general, the past two years have been struggling with Covid-19 pandemic. When considering studying, learning, and working, the teachers and other facilitators have been forced to create innovative methods for online working, aiming to good work efficiency, student engagement, and learning results. Along...

Dysphagia can stem from various etiologies and cause several serious complications. Instrumental evaluation methods for swallowing require special equipment not available everywhere. Thus, an instrumental means to evaluate swallowing that could be used outside a hospital setting would be critical. Dual-axis accelerometers have been utilized in earl...

Music has always been an important way of expressing ourselves. Creating music from bodily interaction has gained much attention: Various gestures, touches, hand and foot movements are used to make music. The traditional identification and sensing technology-passive ultra-high frequency (UHF) radio frequency identification (RFID) technology-can be...

Recent technical advancement has driven the boundary between the physical reality and digital virtuality to diminish significantly. As part of the emerging trend, existing research leverages a synergized use of Radio Frequency IDentification (RFID) and virtual reality (VR) to create compelling hybrid user experience. However, current state-of-the-a...

Puheen ja kommunikoinnin haasteet koskettavat laajaa joukkoa eri ikäisiä ihmisiä. Puhetta tukevien ja korvaavien kommunikointikeinojen, eli AAC- keinojen (engl. Augmentative and Alternative Communication), tarkoituksena on mahdollistaa itseilmaisu, kommunikointi ja osallistuminen. Nykyisten AAC-keinojen käyttöön liittyy monenlaisia käytännön haaste...

Vaikka kuntoutusmenetelmien pitäisi pohjautua näyttöön perustuvaan toimintaan, kuntouttajan työkalupakkiin eksyy välillä keinoja, jotka on napattu muun toiminnan alueelta. Yksi tällainen harjoitteluväline on suun alueen lihaksia vahvistava, alun perin kuorsaukseen ja uniapnean hoitoon kehitetty laite, FaceFormer (FF). Puheterapeutit käyttävät laite...

Previously, glove-integrated communication based on gestures, hand movement and finger touch had a complex operating system and an active power source was needed. This paper introduces batteryless and maintenance-free interface gloves. Our solution is based on passive ultra-high frequency (UHF) radio frequency identification (RFID) technology, comp...

This paper introduces a prototype of a low-energy high-temperature exposure sensor, which is a temperature-sensitive passive UHF RFID tag that bends forward when exposed to warm air. This “Bending Tag” design is based on a simple dipole antenna fabricated from an electro-textile material. The antenna has a 3D-printed substrate, which is constructed...

In this study, a moisture-stimulated three-dimensional printing filament was printed onto an elastic band. The created textile platform changes its shape permanently after exposure to a high-moisture environment. Three main manufacturing parameters – that is, the printed pattern’s infill percentage, the printed pattern’s thickness, and the textile...

This paper introduces a prototype of ClothFace technology, a battery-free textile-based handwriting recognition platform that includes an e-textile antenna and a 10 × 10 array of radio frequency identification (RFID) integrated circuits (ICs), each with a unique ID. Touching the textile platform surface creates an electrical connection from specifi...

In this paper we study the recognition of handwritten characters from data captured by a novel wearable electro-textile sensor panel. The data is collected sequentially, such that we record both the stroke order and the resulting bitmap. We propose a preprocessing pipeline that fuses the sequence and bitmap representations together. The data is col...

This paper introduces ClothFace, a shirtsleeve-integrated human-technology interface platform, which comprises two wrist antennas and three radio frequency identification (RFID) integrated circuits (ICs), each with a unique ID. The platform prototype, which is created on a shirtsleeve by cutting the antennas and antenna-IC interconnections from cop...

We present a passive ultra-high frequency (UHF) radiofrequency identification (RFID)-based strain sensor, which is designed for simple and efficient body movement monitoring. This RFID platform is fabricated from electro-textile materials and can thus be seamlessly integrated into our everyday clothing. The sensor platform has an integrated referen...

In this paper, we establish a new type of passive ultra-high-frequency (UHF) radio frequency identification (RFID) technology-based moisture sensor. The sensor system consists of a sensor tag and a reference tag to indicate exposure to moisture. The sensor tag is fabricated on a cotton substrate from conductive silver yarn and water-soluble polyvin...

In this “Women in Engineering” column, Cecilia Occhiuzzi from the University of Rome Tor Vergata, Italy, and Johanna Virkki from Tampere University of Technology, Finland, present the “pink” side of the academic and industrial research activities on radio-frequency identification (RFID) technology. They present an analysis of how women are making c...

In this paper, we established a new type of passive Ultra-High-Frequency (UHF) Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) technology-based sensor with a referenced readout for moisture. We introduced the sensor system, which consisted of a sensor tag and a reference tag. In a highly moist environment, the sensor tag, which was fabricated by embroidery a...

Older adults form a large and increasing proportion of the world’s population, with falls representing one of the major causes of their mortality and morbidity. When considering the aging population, falls and fall-related injuries pose a major challenge, affecting continued ability to perform activities of daily living (ADLs), independence, and qu...

Passive RFID technology enables versatile energy-and cost-efficient wireless platforms. We present passive UHF RFID tags integrated into normal work gloves for wearable RFID applications. The tags were designed to be functional throughout the global UHF RFID frequency range. The use environments of work gloves are challenging, for example due to mo...

The purpose of this paper was to create service models for cognitively stimulating mobile games and incorporate them into Finnish and Chinese elderly care. The implementation involved the use of two different mobile games as part of the everyday lives of older adults in care homes in Finland (3 months) and China (6 months). Although a large number...

We establish a passive UHF RFID tag as a sensor with a referenced readout to compression. We introduce the sensor tag design, which is based on a two-part split ring resonator antenna, and present the compression sensor platform with a reference tag. We analyze the achieved wireless measurement results and evaluate the performance of the compressio...

We present a circularly polarized tag antenna using textile materials for wearable passive ultra high frequency (UHF) radio frequency identification (RFID) system. A corner-truncated square patch with a shorting pin and an inductive feed network are used to achieve circularly polarization and conjugate impedance matching. The antenna has similar be...

Passive radio frequency identification-based technology is a convincing approach to the achievement of versatile energy- and cost-efficient wireless platforms for future wearable applications. By using two-part antenna structures, the antenna-electronics interconnections can remain non-stressed, which can significantly improve the reliability of th...