Science centres

Centre for Multimodal Biomedical Engineering

The first modern polygraph or "lie detector" was constructed by John Larson in 1921 – a multimodal system for blood pressure, pulse and respiration measuring. His student Leonard Keeler improved the system by measuring the changes in the electrical conductivity of the skin, improving the device's capacity to detect emotional reactions caused by lying. Keeler’s improved polygraph became a standard tool in police investigations in the 1930s.

What does the Centre do?

In this Centre, we study the functioning of people with developmental, communication and movement difficulties. We collect and analyse various measurements from the human body in order to extract the data that allows an assessment of these difficulties. We also investigate how the measured body movements, as well as the activity of the nervous and muscular systems, can be controlled by computers.

Our research is used in the diagnosis and therapy of neurodevelopmental and motor disorders, as well as sports injuries. Therapies based on the use of virtual reality enable exercising in a safe environment, while monitoring physiological reactions and body movements through sensors can help users exercise or therapists adjust and monitor treatment. This is how we contribute to the development of applied biomedical engineering.

Centre Head

Prof. Dr Milica Janković

Associate Professor at the Department of Signals and Systems

Milica Janković, Associate Professor at the Faculty of Electrical Engineering, University of Belgrade, has 20 years of teaching and research experience in medical instrumentation design, neural engineering, medical image acquisition and analysis. Her PhD thesis resulted in the medical image acquisition and analysis system, used in the examination of more than 30,000 patients in the nuclear medicine departments of the Clinical Centre of Serbia and the Clinical Centre of Vojvodina. She has published 25 papers in international journals, one technical solution, two books, one chapter in a book and over 60 conference papers. She has participated in projects in the field of neurorehabilitation, medical robotics, the non-contact measurement of vital signals, and the design and development of multimodal biomedical systems. She has received numerous awards.

Official page

Ongoing projects

  • Research on the emotional and cognitive states caused by different multimedia content (text, image, music and virtual reality)

Learn more about the work and activities of the Centre at