About the project
This project explores how British Sign Language users could interact with healthcare and smart devices with greater privacy, choice and independence. Using radar-centric multimodal AI, the project will study how signing movements can be recognised and translated without relying on cameras, speech or wearable sensors. It aims to complement, not replace, qualified interpreters.
Sign language users are often excluded from technologies designed for spoken communication, including smart devices, digital health systems and automated patient services. In sensitive settings such as healthcare, some British Sign Language (BSL) users may value greater privacy, autonomy and choice in selected interactions, alongside support from qualified interpreters.
This project will address the research challenge of developing privacy-aware BSL recognition and translation using radar-centric multimodal sensing. Radar can capture body, arm and hand movements without recording identifiable camera images, making it a promising technology for non-intrusive sign language recognition.
You'll develop AI methods that combine radar signals with privacy-aware information such as skeletal keypoints, contextual prompts and language models to support expressive BSL recognition and translation. The work will focus on carefully bounded healthcare and smart-device use cases, such as appointment check-in, requesting communication support, symptom-category reporting and medication reminders. The aim is not to replace qualified BSL interpreters, but to complement existing accessibility support and give signers greater choice, privacy and control.
You'll join the EPSRC-funded RADAR-SIGN-BRIDGE project and work within the Digital Health and Biomedical Engineering group at the University of Southampton. You'll access radar sensing facilities, computing resources, interdisciplinary supervision, and training in radar signal processing, machine learning, multimodal AI, responsible innovation and assistive technology. The project will also involve collaboration with experts in language technology and engagement with Deaf community stakeholders.
The School of Electronics and Computer Science is committed to promoting equality, diversity inclusivity as demonstrated by our Athena SWAN award. We welcome all applicants regardless of their gender, ethnicity, disability, sexual orientation or age, and will give full consideration to applicants seeking flexible working patterns and those who have taken a career break. The University has a generous maternity policy, onsite childcare facilities, and offers a range of benefits to help ensure employees’ well-being and work-life balance. The University of Southampton is committed to sustainability and has been awarded the Platinum EcoAward.
