Tim Collins

Dr Tim Collins CEng, SMIEEE, FHEA

Senior Lecturer

Programme Leader, Electrical and Electronic Engineering

My profile

Biography

Academic and professional qualifications

University of Birmingham, Ph.D. in Electronic & Electrical Engineering - “Active Sonar Pulse Design” (1997)
University of Birmingham, B.Eng. (Hons.) 1st class degree in Electronic & Communications Engineering (1993)

External examiner roles

2015 - 2019 University of Derby, MSc Audio Engineering
2011 - 2016 University of Wolverhampton, Electronics and Mechatronics Programmes BEng/MEng

Other distinctions

Chartered Engineer (C.Eng)

Expert reviewer for external funding bodies

Member of the EPSRC peer review college

Editorial Board membership

Associate Editor, MIT Press, PRESENCE: Virtual and Augmented Reality Journal

Guest Editor, PRESENCE Journal: Virtual and Augmented Reality Special Issue on User Experience and Engagement

Membership of professional associations

Member of the Institution of Engineering Technology (IET)

Senior Member of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE)

Personal website address

http://drtimcollins.com/

Get in touch

0161 247 1658
327 John Dalton East

Teaching

Subject areas

Analogue Electronics, Electronic Engineering, Signal Processing.

Supervision

PhD Supervision

Current “Artefact Reduction for 24 Hour Wrist-Worn Photoplethysmogram Heart-Rate Estimation”
2019 “Real-World Multi-Modal Recording and Data Analysis of Circadian Parameters”
2016 “View Invariant Multi-Modal Person Re-identification”
2016 “The Reconstruction of Virtual Cuneiform Fragments in an Online Environment”
2015 “Rendering Ambisonics over Headphones”
2010 “A Room Acoustics Measurement System Using Non-Invasive Microphone Arrays”
2005 “Cyclostationary Direction Finding”
2004 “Incoherent Processing of Synthetic Aperture Sonar”

Research outputs

AI, Machine Learning and Deep Neural Networks

  • AI applications for physiological monitoring
  • Deep neural networks for robust heart rate estimation
  • AI applications for audio processing

Medical Devices, Data Analysis and Machine Learning

  • Wearable ambient, physiological and energy expenditure sensing
  • Wearable device performance evaluation
  • Auto-injector usage sensing for patient training
  • Logging and analysis of clinical data for monitoring the progress of intensive care unit patients

Virtual and Augmented Reality

  • Acquisition and virtual reconstruction of fragmented cuneiform tablets
  • Augmented reality apps
  • Virtual museum experiences and artefact interaction

Audio, Acoustics and Sonar Signal Processing

  • 3D spatial audio analysis, synthesis, processing and reproduction
  • 3D acoustic interfaces for computer-human interaction
  • Underwater communications and networks
  • Active sonar signal design

  • Chapters in books

    Goodwin, C., Woolley, S., de Quincey, E., Collins, T. (2023) 'Quantifying Device Usefulness - How Useful is an Obsolete Device?.' pp. 90-99.

    Woolley, S., Mitchell, J., Collins, T., Rhodes, R., Rukasha, T., Gehlken, E., Ch’ng, E., Cooke, A. (2021) 'Virtual Museum ‘Takeouts’ and DIY Exhibitions–Augmented Reality Apps for Scholarship, Citizen Science and Public Engagement.' pp. 323-333.

    Collins, T. (2011) 'Carrierless Amplitude Phase Modulation.' Handbook of Computer Networks. pp. 426-437.

    Xiao, L., collins, T., Sun, Y. (2006) 'Acoustic Source Localization for Design of Tangible Acoustic Interfaces.' Intelligent Production Machines and Systems - 2nd I*PROMS Virtual International Conference 3-14 July 2006. pp. 529-534.

    Sun, Y., Collins, T., Xiao, L. (2006) 'Tracking Target Using Wideband Cox Comb Signals for Human Computer Interaction.' Intelligent Production Machines and Systems - 2nd I*PROMS Virtual International Conference 3-14 July 2006. pp. 562-567.

  • Internet publications

    Collins, T., Woolley, S. (2019) Some heart-rate monitors give less reliable readings for people of colour. https://theconversation.com/some-heart-rate-monitors-give-less-reliable-readings-for-people-of-colour-121007.

    Collins, T., Peres, I., Oniani, S., Woolley, S. (2018) How reliable is your wearable heart-rate monitor?. https://theconversation.com/how-reliable-is-your-wearable-heart-rate-monitor-98095.

    woolley, S., gehlken, E., ch'ng, E., Collins, T. (2018) Virtual archaeology: how we achieved the first long-distance reconstruction of a cultural artefact. https://theconversation.com/virtual-archaeology-how-we-achieved-the-first-long-distance-reconstruction-of-a-cultural-artefact-91725.

  • Journal articles

    Woolley, S.I., Collins, T. (2021) 'User Experience and Engagement in the Reality–Virtuality Continuum: A Special Issue Guest Editorial.' PRESENCE-Virtual and Augmented Reality, 28pp. 203-206.

    Ray, D., Collins, T., Woolley, S., Ponnapalli, P. (2021) 'A Review of Wearable Multi-wavelength Photoplethysmography.' IEEE Reviews in Biomedical Engineering, 16pp. 136-151.

    Ray, D., Collins, T., Ponnapalli, P. (2021) 'Deep Neural Network Architecture Search for Wearable Heart Rate Estimations..' Studies in health technology and informatics, 281pp. 1106-1107.

    Collins, T., Woolley, S.I., Oniani, S., Pandyan, A. (2021) 'Quantifying Missingness in Wearable Heart Rate Recordings..' Studies in health technology and informatics, 281pp. 1077-1078.

    Woolley, S., Rukasha, T., Kyriacou, T., Collins, T. (2020) 'Evaluation of Wearable Electronics for Epilepsy: A Systematic Review.' Electronics (Basel), 9(6) pp. 968-968.

    Collins, T., Woolley, S., Gehlken, E., Ch'ng, E. (2019) 'Automated Low-Cost Photogrammetric Acquisition of 3D Models from Small Form-Factor Artefacts.' Electronics, 8(12)

    Woolley, S., Collins, T., Mitchell, J., Fredericks, D. (2019) 'Investigation of wearable health tracker version updates.' BMJ Health & Care Informatics, 26

    Collins, T., Woolley, S.I., Oniani, S., Pires, I.M., Garcia, N.M., Ledger, S.J., Pandyan, A. (2019) 'Version reporting and assessment approaches for new and updated activity and heart rate monitors.' Sensors (Switzerland), 19(7)

    Rozman, M., Fernando, M., Adebisi, B., Rabie, K.M., Collins, T., Kharel, R., Ikpehai, A. (2017) 'A New Technique for Reducing Size of a WPT System Using Two-Loop Strongly-Resonant Inductors.' Energies, 10(10)

    Collins, T., Yao, S.N., Liang, C. (2017) 'Head-Related Transfer Function Selection Using Neural Networks.' Archives of Acoustics, 42(3) pp. 365-373.

    Hernandez-Munoz, L.U., Woolley, S.I., Luyt, D., Stiefel, G., Kirk, K., Makwana, N., Melchior, C., Dawson, T.C., Wong, G., Collins, T., Diwakar, L. (2017) 'Evaluation of AllergiSense smartphone tools for adrenaline injection training.' IEEE Journal of Biomedical and Health Informatics, 21(1) pp. 272-282.

    Collins, T., Woolley, S.I., Rawson, N.C., Haroon, L. (2016) 'Final-year projects using open source OpenEEG.' Computer Applications in Engineering Education, 24(1) pp. 156-164.

    Yao, S.N., Collins, T., Jančovič, P. (2015) 'Timbral and spatial fidelity improvement in ambisonics.' Applied Acoustics, 93pp. 1-8.

    Gehlken, E., Woolley, S.I., Collins, T., Ch'ng, E. (2014) 'Automated Joining of Cuneiform Tablet Fragments.' NABU, Nouvelles Assyriologiques Brèves et Utilitaires, 2014(4) pp. 119-120.

    Yao, S.N., Collins, T., Jančovič, P. (2012) 'Hybrid method for designing digital Butterworth filters.' Computers and Electrical Engineering, 38(4) pp. 811-818.

    Foo, K.Y., Atkins, P.R., Collins, T., Pointer, S.A., Tiltman, C.P. (2010) 'Sea trials of an underwater, ad hoc, acoustic network with stationary assets.' IET Radar, Sonar and Navigation, 4(1) pp. 2-16.

    Collins, T. (2009) 'Active acoustic touch interface.' Electronics Letters, 45(20) pp. 1055-1056.

    Foo, K.Y., Atkins, P.R., Collins, T. (2008) 'Results from trials of a planar, incoherent, synthetic aperture sonar for underwater imaging.' IET Radar, Sonar and Navigation, 2(3) pp. 214-226.

    Roper, S., Collins, T. (2007) 'A sound sources and reflections localization method for reverberant rooms using arrays of microphones.' Proceedings of the AES International Conference,

    Atkins, P.R., Collins, T., Foote, K.G. (2007) 'Transmit-signal design and processing strategies for sonar target phase measurement.' IEEE Journal on Selected Topics in Signal Processing, 1(1) pp. 91-104.

    Foo, K.Y., Atkins, P.R., Collins, T. (2004) 'Sea trials of bi-static, time-domain, incoherent synthetic aperture sonar.' Electronics Letters, 40(5) pp. 341-343.

    Collins, T., Atkins, P. (1999) 'Nonlinear frequency modulation chirps for active sonar.' IEE Proceedings: Radar, Sonar and Navigation, 146(6) pp. 312-316.

    Collins, T., Atkins, P. (1998) 'Doppler-sensitive active sonar pulse designs for reverberation processing.' IEE Proceedings: Radar, Sonar and Navigation, 145(6) pp. 347-353.

  • Conference papers

    Ray, D., Collins, T., Ponnapalli, P.V.S. (2022) 'DeepPulse: An Uncertainty-aware Deep Neural Network for Heart Rate Estimations from Wrist-worn Photoplethysmography.' 2022. 11/7/2022 - 15/7/2022. IEEE, pp. 1651-1654.

    Woolley, S., Collins, T., Gehlken, E., Rhodes, R., Dhar, M. (2022) 'Interactive 3D viewer interfaces for virtual museum artefacts.' In 35th International BCS Human-Computer Interaction Conference (HCI2022). Keele, Staffordshire, United Kingdom, 11/7/2022 - 13/7/2022. BCS, The Chartered Institute for IT,

    Woolley, S., de Quincey, E., Flint, T., Grandison, T., Rugg, G., Fleck, R., Whittington, P., Ortolani, M., Misirli, G., Collins, T. (2022) 'Reflections on the 35th BCS Human-Computer Interaction Conference at Keele University.' In 35th International BCS Human-Computer Interaction Conference (HCI2022). Keele, Staffordshire, United Kingdom, 11/7/2022 - 13/7/2022. BCS, The Chartered Institute for IT,

    Woolley, S.I., Collins, T., Andras, P., Gardner, A., Ortolani, M., Pitt, J. (2021) 'Compounding barriers to fairness in the digital technology ecosystem.' In 2021 IEEE International Symposium on Technology and Society (ISTAS). Waterloo, ON, Canada, 28/10/2021 - 31/10/2021. IEEE,

    Collins, T., Woolley, S., Rhodes, R., Polack, F. (2021) 'Museums of the Future: Heritage Experiences in the Reality-Virtuality Continuum.'

    Woolley, S., Collins, T. (2021) 'Art for Computer Scientists: Processing as an open-source art medium for computer science undergraduates.' 5/7/2021 - 9/7/2021. BCS Learning & Development,

    Collins, T., Rukasha, T., Woolley, S. (2021) 'Poster: Heart Rate Performance of a Medical-Grade Data Streaming Wearable Device.' 17/12/2020 - 18/12/2020. IEEE,

    Rukasha, T., Woolley, S., Collins, T. (2020) 'Poster: Heart Rate Performance of a Medical-Grade Data Streaming Wearable Device.' 16/12/2020 - 18/12/2020.

    Rukasha, T., Woolley, S.I., Collins, T. (2020) 'Wearable epilepsy seizure monitor user interface evaluation: An evaluation of the empatica 'embrace' interface.' In Adjunct - Proceedings of the 2020 ACM International Joint Conference on Pervasive and Ubiquitous Computing and Proceedings of the 2020 ACM International Symposium on Wearable Computers. Association for Computing Machinery, pp. 110-114.

    Collins, T., Woolley, S.I., Gehlken, E., Ch'ng, E. (2018) 'Computational Aspects of Model Acquisition and Join Geometry for the Virtual Reconstruction of the Atrahasis Cuneiform Tablet.' In 23rd International Conference on Virtual Systems Multimedia (VSMM 2017). Dublin, Ireland, 31/10/2017 - 2/11/2017. IEEE,

    Collins, T., Woolley, S.I., Infante Sanchez, D., Pemberton, P., Veenith, T., Hume, D., Laver, K., Small, C., Lap ao, L., others, (2018) 'Wearable Patient and Health Worker Monitoring: Opportunities for Improved Outcomes and Open Source Sensing.' In Medical Informatics Europe (MIE). Gothenburg, Sweden, 24/4/2018 - 26/4/2018. Keele University,

    Collins, T., Woolley, S., Gehlken, E., Ch'ng, E. (2017) 'Computational Aspects of Model Acquisition and Join Geometry for the Virtual Reconstruction of the Atrahasis Cuneiform Tablet.' In 23rd International Conference on Virtual Systems and Multimedia (VSMM). Univ Coll Dublin, IRELAND, 31/10/2017 - 4/11/2017. Goodman, L., Addison, A. (ed.) IEEE, pp. 300-305.

    Woolley, S.I., Ch'ng, E., Hernandez-Munoz, L., Gehlken, E., Collins, T., Nash, D., Lewis, A., Hanes, L. (2017) 'A collaborative artefact reconstruction environment.' In 31st British Computer Society Human Computer Interaction Conference. Sunderland, UK, 3/7/2017 - 6/7/2017. BCS Learning and Development, pp. 53-53.

    Collins, T., Woolley, S.I., Ch'ng, E., Hernandez-Munoz, L., Gehlken, E., Nash, D., Lewis, A., Hanes, L. (2017) 'A virtual 3D cuneiform tablet reconstruction interaction.' 2017-July.

    Collins, T., Gehlken, E., Woolley, S.I., Hanes, L., Lewis, A., Hernandez-Munoz, L., Ch'ng, E. (2016) 'From Uruk to Ur: Automated Matching of Virtual Tablet Fragments.' 11/7/2016 - 15/7/2016. International Association for Assyriology,

    Collins, T., Woolley, S.I., Aldred, S., Rai, S. (2015) 'Addressing the Deployment Challenges of Health Monitoring Devices for a Dementia Study.' 14/10/2015 - 16/10/2015. pp. 202-205.

    Ch'Ng, E., Woolley, S.I., Hernandez-Munoz, L., Collins, T., Lewis, A., Gehlken, E. (2014) 'The development of a collaborative virtual environment for 3D reconstruction of cuneiform tablets.' pp. 35-42.

    Collins, T., Woolley, S.I., Munoz, L.H., Lewis, A., Ch'Ng, E., Gehlken, E. (2014) 'Computer-assisted reconstruction of virtual fragmented cuneiform tablets.' pp. 70-77.

    Collins, T. (2013) 'Binaural ambisonic decoding with enhanced lateral localization.' pp. 72-81.

    Sanchez, D.I., Collins, T., Stone, R. (2012) 'Effect of 10 and 20 Hz photic stimulation on stress and temperature of the fingers.' pp. 142-146.

    Sanchez, D.I., Collins, T., Stone, R., Woolley, S.I. (2012) 'Cellular phone-based bofeedback to treat physical and mental disorders.' pp. 411-414.

    Sanchez, D.I., Collins, T., Stone, R. (2012) 'Can thermal biofeedback be implemented on cellular phones for therapeutic uses?.' pp. 118-123.

    Yao, S.N., Collins, T., Jančovič, P. (2011) 'A dual-mode architecture for headphones delivering surround sound: Low-order IIR filter models approach.' pp. 62-66.

    Roper, S., Collins, T. (2007) 'The localization of a sound source in a reverberant room using arrays of microphones.'

    Atkins, P.R., Foote, K.G., Collins, T. (2007) 'Practical implications of sonar target-phase measurement classifiers.' 29. pp. 170-178.

    Lejun, X., Collins, T., Ying, S. (2006) 'Acoustic source localization for human computer interaction.' 2006. pp. 9-14.

    Sun, Y., Collins, T., Xiao, L. (2006) '3D active doppler tracking in air using kalman filter.' 2006. pp. 71-75.

    Xiao, L., Collins, T. (2006) 'Multiple source localization under reverberant conditions.' In 8th International Conference on Signal Processing. Guilin, PEOPLES R CHINA, 16/11/2006 - 20/11/2006. Yuan, B.Z., Ruan, Q.Q., Tang, X.F. (ed.) IEEE, pp. 2888-2891.

    Foo, K.Y., Atkins, P.R., Collins, T., Morley, C., Davies, J. (2004) 'A routing and channel-access approach for an ad hoc underwater acoustic network.' 2. pp. 789-795.

    Collins, T. (2003) 'A NON-LINEAR TECHNIQUE FOR ROOM IMPULSE RESPONSE ESTIMATION.'

    Foo, K.Y., Atkins, P.R., Collins, T. (2003) 'Robust underwater imaging with fast broadband incoherent synthetic aperture sonar.' 5. pp. 17-20.

    Collins, T., Atkins, P. (2001) 'Error-tolerant SPIHT image compression.' 148. pp. 182-186.

    Collins, T., Atkins, P., Davies, J., Dunn, S. (2001) 'Robust video coding for underwater transmission.' 4310. pp. 893-899.

    Collins, T., Atkins, P., Davies, J.J. (1999) 'Video transmission through a shallow underwater acoustical channel.' pp. 23-26.

  • Posters

    Infante Sanchez, D., Woolley, S., Collins, T., Pemberton, P., Veenith, T., Hume, D., Laver, K., Small, C. (2017) 'The Quantified Outpatient - Challenges and Opportunities in 24hr Patient Monitoring.' [Poster] http://informaticsforhealth.org/. Date viewed 24/4/2017.