DrCharalambos Hadjipanayi

Dr. Charalambos Hadjipanayi is a post-doctoral researcher in the Next Generation Neural Interfaces (NGNI) Lab at the Department of Electrical and Electronic Engineering, Imperial College London.

His PhD project focused on the use of Ultra-Wideband (UWB) radars for gait analysis of patients with neurodegenerative disorders, with the broader aim of advancing remote sensing technologies for in-home gait assessment.

His research explored the application of commercially available IR-UWB radars to monitor human behaviour, specifically analysing gait patterns to aid in the clinical assessment of both healthy individuals and patients. A significant part of his work involved the development of a novel and computationally efficient algorithm to extract clinically relevant spatiotemporal gait information, such as gait parameters and their variability or asymmetry. This algorithm has been validated through trials with both healthy and patient cohorts, demonstrating its performance against gold standard methods. Additionally, his research examined the impact of external factors on algorithm accuracy and introduces a new approach for analysing sit-to-stand motion, which is an integral part of the Short Physical Performance Battery (SPPB) assessment.

He also received his MEng Biomedical Engineering degree with a specialization in Electrical Engineering, earning First Class Honours from the Department of Bioengineering, Imperial College London, in 2020. His MEng project aimed at developing an external portable system to enhance the control performance of a powered lower-limb exoskeleton for the 2020 Cybathlon competition. This was achieved through the development of a foot pressure sensing system that provided additional sensor information to the exoskeleton's motion controller, based on plantar pressure measurements. The system focused on the centre of pressure (CoP) shift of the body and provided intuitive haptic feedback to the user, improving overall control and usability.