A symphony of senses in the digital realm
Raison d'être
In daily life, people do not rely on only one sense. We look, listen, speak, move and react with our body and emotions at the same time.
Multimodal AI is about giving computers the similar ability: to learn from many kinds of information together instead being fragmented as just text or a single image.
When you read "What A Happy Sunny Day!", maybe you picture a bright sky, listen to cheerful birds, or feel the warmth on your skin. Each of these is a different way to experience the moment. Most AI can only focus on one thing at a time, like just showing you an image or reading the sentence. That's "unimodal AI", it handles only one type of information.
Now imagine if AI could take in all these experiences together to see, hear, and sense just like we do. That's the power of Multimodal AI, where technology understands the world through many streams of information all at once.
- •Humans are multimodal
- •Collecting multimodal data though essential but is difficult
- •India-Centric data collection for multimodal AI for the first time
- •Perfecting the synchronization techniques is the key to be mastered
What is Multimodal AI?
Imagine watching a movie with the sound turned off. You see the action, but you miss the emotion in the voices. Now imagine the sound is on, but the picture is blurry. You hear the story, but you miss the expressions.
Multimodal AI is the science of putting those pieces back together. It's not just about a computer "reading text" or "looking at a photo." It's about a system that can see your gestures, hear your tone of voice, and even understand your heartbeat all at the same time to get the "full picture" of what is happening.
This is the promise of Multimodal AI which the Technology Innovation Hub at IIT Mandi is trying to bring to reality.
Why does this lab exist?
Today most AI is trained on a single type of data at a time (for example only text or only images), which is not enough to understand complex human behaviour or real-world environments.
Properly collected multimodal data—everything recorded at the same time and perfectly synchronized —is rare and difficult to create, especially for Indian languages, faces, accents and daily situations.
The Multimodal Lab is a state-of-the-art research space dedicated to advancing human-centric data collection and AI innovation. At its core, the lab focuses on understanding human behavior and interaction by capturing data from multiple human-centric modalities.
A human subject takes the center stage within a specialized environment, where advanced sensors record subtle human expressions, gestures, poses, movements, and responses from various perspectives.
Why focus on India-Centric Data?
The Multimodal AI Lab at IIT Mandi will focus on creating the last two categories—especially synchronized multimodal data collected actual Indian environments with Indians as subject. This will be India's first significant contribution to this critical global need.
Data does not exist to cater to the diversity of the Indian contexts, accents, expressions and daily life.
By building this lab, India can create AI systems that actually work well for Indians, rather than relying on foreign datasets that may not understand Indian faces, voices or situations.
What makes this lab unique?
The lab is building something similar in spirit to an "ImageNet"* for multimodality: a large, carefully designed collection of Indian multimodal data that others can use to create new AI tools.
A special egg-shaped camera setup with around 20 high‑quality cameras, lights, microphones and motion sensors captures very fine details of faces, voices and body movements at the same moment.
Dedicated spaces—the Capture Room, Dark Room, UX Labs and Multi‑Sensor Room—allow controlled experiments for vision, sound, user experience and body signals under many lighting and environmental conditions.
* ImageNet originated from a collaboration between Stanford and Princeton Universities, led by Stanford's Fei-Fei Li and Princeton's Kai Li, starting around 2008 to build a large visual database for computer vision research, using WordNet's structure to organize millions of images. The project became famous through the ImageNet Large Scale Visual Recognition Challenge (ILSVRC), which significantly advanced deep learning.
Explore the Lab
The Multimodal Data Collection Lab consists of controlled anechoic capture environment designed for high-fidelity, synchronized acquisition of human-centric data. The lab features a dedicated capture chamber equipped with a multi-camera, multi-sensor setup enabling 360-degree and 3D data capture of human subjects. High-speed cameras, precision microphones, and additional sensing modalities are spatially arranged and synchronized using advanced hardware-based techniques to ensure precise temporal alignment across data streams. This integrated infrastructure supports the creation of state-of-the-art multimodal and multiview datasets for industrial applications and the development of next-generation AI systems.
Advanced Infrastructure
- •High-speed cameras for capturing detailed visual data
- •Precision microphones for high-quality audio capture
- •Cutting-edge biosensing devices for physiological monitoring
- •Specialized hardware/equipment for precise synchronization
- •Temporal alignment at sub-millisecond accuracy
- •Comprehensive recording of emotional expressions and behavioral patterns
SOTA Data Capture Environment
- •High-end capture space for professional data acquisition
- •Advanced anechoic chamber for complete sound isolation
- •Specialized lighting infrastructure for varied conditions
- •Lighting scenarios from bright daylight to low-light settings
- •Controlled yet dynamic environment for human response studies
- •Ensures robustness and realism in datasets
High-Fidelity Multimodal Datasets
- •Acquisition of high-fidelity, real-world datasets
- •Comprehensive data covering emotional expressions and cognitive processes
- •Integrated capture of physiological and behavioral processes
- •Rigorously curated and systematically annotated datasets
- •Serve as ground truth for next-generation AI models
- •Enable advancements in emotion analysis and HCI
Industrial Applications
Translating Multimodal Intelligence into Real-World Impact
Robotics & Intelligent Automation
Use Cases:
- •3D perception and scene understanding
- •Human–object interaction modeling
- •Robot learning through human demonstrations
Product Visualization & Virtual Commerce
Use Cases:
- •Novel view synthesis for products
- •3D product rotation and visualization
- •Virtual try-on and immersive product demos
Media, Entertainment & Digital Content
Use Cases:
- •3D human reconstruction for animation and VFX
- •Motion capture–driven character animation
- •Photorealistic digital humans and avatars
Healthcare, Rehabilitation & Assistive Technologies
Use Cases:
- •Motion tracking for physical rehabilitation
- •Cognitive–motor behavior analysis using EEG
- •Assistive AI systems for motor-impaired users
Neurological Health & Cognitive Monitoring
Use Cases:
- •Early detection of neurological disorders (Parkinson's, Alzheimer's)
- •Speech, facial, and motor behavior analysis for cognitive assessment
- •Multimodal biomarker discovery using synchronized signals
AR/VR/XR & Metaverse Applications
Use Cases:
- •Immersive interaction capture
- •Real-time avatar embodiment
- •Spatial mapping and localization
Surveillance & Security Intelligence
Use Cases:
- •Detection of abnormal human behavior through multimodal analysis of movement, posture, and gestures
- •Audio–visual threat assessment using voice stress, aggression cues, and activity recognition
- •Face–voice association and identity-aware behavior analysis for enhanced situational awareness
Team
News+Updates
Let's share the stories of the Multimodal AI Lab's transformative breakthroughs—where the convergence of audio, vision, and haptic to create technologies that enhance human capability and enable inclusive progress.
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Contact Us
Get in touch with us for inquiries, collaborations, or any questions about our research.
Address
IIT Mandi iHub and HCi Foundation, North Campus, VPO Kamand, District Mandi, Himachal Pradesh, India - 175075