��ݮ��Ƶ News - Advancements in Big and Small Manufacturing

Aviation parts made one at a time, any time, just in time

Brian Caldwell — Wed, 22 Sep 2021 20:53:54 +0000

3D printing technology is perfect fit with new ��ݮ��Ƶ Institute for Sustainable Aeronautics

With its present ability to deliver high-value, low-volume parts and components, additive manufacturing (AM) is a perfect fit for the specialized needs and demands of the aeronautics industry.

Projects and research related to aeronautics already account for about 25 per cent of work at the Multi-Scale Additive Manufacturing (MSAM) Lab at ��ݮ��Ƶ Engineering, and leaders there see even more opportunities ahead with the scheduled launch on Oct. 5 of the new ��ݮ��Ƶ Institute for Sustainable Aeronautics (WISA).

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The video above chronicles the production of custom, aerodynamic metal parts for the Canadian Olympic cycling team, from digital design to 3D printing, using an additive manufacturing process known as laser powder bed fusion at the MSAM Lab at ��ݮ��Ƶ Engineering.

“AM adoption started in the biomedical and aerospace/aviation fields and they’re still the main drivers,” said Mihaela Vlasea, associate research director at MSAM and a professor of mechanical and mechatronics engineering at the University of ��ݮ��Ƶ.

Also known as 3D printing, AM offers tremendous design freedom because parts are precisely built up layer-by-layer rather than cut out of blocks of material or produced via forming processes in traditional manufacturing approaches.

That means parts can be customized and optimized to boost efficiency, performance and longevity, limiting waste and reducing weight, for instance, so aircraft require less fuel.

“By virtue of the additive manufacturing technology, you have the ability to build parts one unit at a time,” said Vlasea, a member of WISA. “You can functionalize components at the design level as well as at the material system level. This allows you to produce new optimized components that you literally couldn’t build using conventional manufacturing.”

Mihaela Vlasea is associate research director of the Multi-Scale Additive Manufacturing (MSAM) Lab and a member of the new ��ݮ��Ƶ Institute for Sustainable Aeronautics (WISA).

In the case of aging aircraft, the technology enables the manufacture of innovative and customized components to optimize functionality. It can also address replacement parts that are no longer mass produced, dramatically reducing costs and increasing efficiency.

With a focus on metal AM, the growing ��ݮ��Ƶ MSAM lab – it has almost doubled in size in the last 18 months – is actively involved in optimized design and manufacturing of parts for propulsion and thermal management, including complex, hidden cooling channels and other features.

It has also developed particular expertise in determining how to use new metal powders – the raw materials of metal AM – including high-strength aluminum alloys, titanium alloys and nickel superalloys.

“We’re striving to be the go-to lab in Canada if someone has a new alloy in aerospace that they want to test and print into functional products,” Vlasea said.

WISA a 'terrific way of consolidating competencies'

To ensure highly specialized, expensive parts made with AM are up to the job, the lab uses a variety of machine sensors and characterization techniques to detect potential problems before they are actually deployed.

And to reduce waste, and therefore costs, as much as possible, MSAM researchers are working with experts at the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council on the best ways to reuse and recycle metal powders left over after printing.

It all adds up to better aeronautics parts that also save money and resources, boosting the economy while also reducing environment impacts via benefits such as lower fuel requirements and shorter supply chains.

“The new institute is a terrific way of consolidating competencies across campus such that we can effectively communicate with other researchers and engage in opportunities that might not be available if we remained fragmented, including high-level, collaborative grants,” Vlasea said.

Main photo: A technician at MSAM removes aerodynamic metal parts that were custom-made for the Canadian Olympic cycling team using a process known as laser powder bed fusion.

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Dream-like space brought to life in Venice

Carol Truemner — Thu, 20 May 2021 18:22:15 +0000

��ݮ��Ƶ team creates vision of a transformed world for architecture biennale

A ��ݮ��Ƶ project designed to reflect an optimistic and inclusive environment is part of this year’s Venice Architecture Biennale.

Philip Beesley, a School of Architecture professor, along with a team including Rob Gorbet, a Faculty of Environment professor, dozens of ��ݮ��Ƶ students and hundreds of other collaborators from around the world created the installation called Grove for the international exhibition, which opened May 22.

Interpreted by The New York Times as “overcoming social and political polarization by replacing hard walls with open environments”, Grove includes a canopy of what looks like luminous, lace-like clouds embedded with liquid-filled glass vessels.

Below the canopy, a pool-shaped screen projects the film entitled Grove Cradle. The projection pool is surrounded by what is described as “a forest of totemic, basket-like columns” with embedded custom speakers that carry “a 4DSOUND composition” created especially for the exhibit.

Brand new concept

The final installation is completely different from what the ��ݮ��Ƶ team started working on before the pandemic, which postponed the launch of the Venice Biennale twice last year.

Moving away from their first heavily interactive design, Beesley and his collaborators came up with a concept that includes a unique multi-media system offering expanded physical and virtual experiences.

Architecture professor Philip Beesley

The new design reflects the overall theme of the Venice Biennale that asks the question “How Will We Live Together?”

“We came up with a vision of a transformed world where future architecture seeks communion with plants, animals, and inert matter alike,” says Beesley, director of the Living Architecture Systems Group.

Parts of the exhibit evolved from Meander, another installation located in Tapestry Hall near the School of Architecture in Cambridge.

Also integrated into the design of the installation were thesis work by Tahir Pervais and Bianca Weeko Martin, now architecture alumni, and experimental engineering structures built by Richard Mui and Soo Woo, who are also now architecture graduates.

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��ݮ��Ƶ's Grove installation is featured in this year's Venice Biennale.

Created to inspire hope and action

Beesley says developing and installing Grove during the pandemic was a “wild experience” with social distancing and lockdowns complicating all steps during the process.

One way team members responded to Covid-19 restrictions was by developing extensive online content that can be shared using any laptop or mobile phone.

Grove’s “deeply-felt artwork” is intended to stir both hope and action.

“During a time of such deep strain and uncertainty, expressions that build realistic kinds of optimism seem important,” says Beesley.

��ݮ��Ƶ’s School of Architecture has played a prominent role in past Venice Biennales with faculty members invited to curate exhibits at most of the recent ones.

This year’s Venice Biennale is open to the public with health and safety precautions in place to help prevent the spread of COVID-19. The exhibition closes on November 21.

Watch video on YouTube

Philip Beesley appeared on the U��ݮ��Ƶ podcast Beyond the Bulletin to discuss his fascinating work and collaborations. Listen to the interview here.

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A game changer for climate science

MSC MSC MarComm Co-op — Wed, 20 Jan 2021 13:37:40 +0000

��ݮ��Ƶ launches virtual simulation to simplify and explore climate solutions

A new simulation game delivers an educational experience that sheds light on strategies to fight climate change.

With growing awareness of the devastating impacts of climate change, inspiring hope and highlighting solutions are key to managing the climate crisis. To help people understand the science, the risks and (most importantly) the solutions, the Interdisciplinary Centre on Climate Change (IC3) at the University of ��ݮ��Ƶ is launching Illuminate.

Illuminate is an educational simulation game where players learn about the impacts of climate change and explore ways to reduce greenhouse gas emissions (GHG) and respond to climate risks. IC3 developed Illuminate in partnership with the University of ��ݮ��Ƶ’s Games Institute, and a multi-disciplinary team of students, staff and faculty from across campus.

When seeing is believing

“Games can be useful tools for communicating research and enabling people to engage with complex concepts,” says Neil Randall, executive director of the Games Institute. “Illuminate was created to help educate players about climate science in a way that is engaging and interactive. In Illuminate, players are presented with real-world issues and have to decide where to direct their efforts. This gaming model, known as “choice-and-consequence,” allows players to learn about the situation they're trying to resolve and provides feedback about their actions through changes in the game’s outcomes.”

In Illuminate, players must complete two missions to finish the game. In mission one, players explore ways to reduce GHG emissions and prevent global temperatures from rising to dangerous levels. Once players have completed mission one, their actions lead them either to a high carbon or low carbon future where they will move on to mission two. In mission two, players visit three types of Canadian communities (coastal, rural and urban) where they are asked to help prepare communities for the impacts of climate change, including rising sea levels, extreme heat and extreme weather. 

Expanding its reach beyond the U��ݮ��Ƶ community, IC3 is launching Illuminate with support from Protect our Winters (POW) Canada and Hot Planets Cool Athletes (HPCA), national organizations that advocate for policy solutions to climate change and focus on educational programing to inspire leadership in the fight against climate change.

Changing the game on climate solutions

IC3 is releasing Illuminate as part of HPCA’s newly developed Climate Educator’s Portal, an educational platform designed to empower teachers across Canada to educate their students about climate change.

Illuminate was designed for Canadian classroom settings to supplement guided lessons and for remote learning independently or with families at home. It also aims to teach players about the impacts of climate change while inspiring hope and motivating Canadians to take action and find effective solutions that will help shape our future.

“Education is an essential part of the global response to climate change,” says Daniel Scott, executive director of IC3 and board member of POW Canada. “The University of ��ݮ��Ƶ has been a pioneer in climate change higher education and has partnered with Protect Our Winters and their amazing motivational team of athletes to support teachers to increase climate literacy among Canadian youth and empower them to develop future climate change solutions.”

Illuminate and the Climate Educator’s Portal are hoping to reach more than 500 schools and 15,000 students across Canada.

IC3 is the focal point for climate change research, training and knowledge mobilization at the University of ��ݮ��Ƶ. IC3 facilitates interdisciplinary research and education that empowers business, government and civil society to respond effectively to climate change and accelerate the transition to a low-carbon and climate-resilient society.

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Delivering medications by drones

MSC MSC MarComm Co-op — Thu, 26 Nov 2020 14:14:13 +0000

��ݮ��Ƶ’s School of Pharmacy partners with AirMatrix to trial medication delivery by automated drones

COVID-19 has changed the daily workflow of community pharmacies.

As essential services, pharmacies remained open when many other health-care facilities closed or shifted online, creating a surge in demand that overwhelmed many practices, especially in the area of medication delivery.

“To reduce in-person visits to the pharmacy and limit risk of infection, some community pharmacists are now completing up to three times more delivery orders than pre-pandemic,” Nancy Waite says, associate director of Clinical Education at the School of Pharmacy. “Pharmacists are working hard to keep up, but there is clearly a need for ways to increase our efficiency to meet this demand.”

Alex McCalla (AirMatrix), Mary Lee (AirMatrix) and Nancy Waite (School of Pharmacy) after drone take off on trial day. Photo provided by AirMatrix.

A new project with AirMatrix, a Canadian company that specializes in designing skyways for drones, hopes to help with this. Partnering with the Region of ��ݮ��Ƶ, AirMatrix will be working with community organizations to run trials of drone delivery services — in the School of Pharmacy’s case, this will include medication delivery by drone.

“We know that drone delivery is the way of the future,” Anthony Miller says, experiential co-ordinator for Co-op and partner on the project. “And we’ve been working to grow our engagement with health technology partners in the region. This was a perfect opportunity to provide our insight — insight on how pharmacies operate, on the needs of practitioners and patients — and to use it to meaningfully influence how a cutting-edge technological solution is developed.”

Reducing risk through flight and automation

Drone delivery of medications minimizes the need for person-to-person contact and has the potential to greatly decrease the amount of time and money spent on coordinating and executing deliveries, allowing health-care workers to spend more time on patient care. It would also reduce the number of vehicles on the road, providing an environmentally-friendly alternative to traditional delivery methods.

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AirMatrix provides millimeter-precise route mapping for drones, with a traffic management platform to optimise and fly routes cooperatively with other drone traffic. The drone is loaded with medication and programmed on a specific route and does not require remote controlling by a human operator.

To facilitate trial runs, Miller and Waite reached out to Becky Agar, vice-president of Hogan Pharmacy Partners, and Darryl Moore, a pharmacy owner and president of Hogan’s Pharmacy Partners Ltd.

“We immediately saw the benefits of exploring drone deliveries to our partner homes. Drones offer the possibility of contactless, traceable deliveries when a long-term care home needs a medication urgently. Hogans is always looking for ways to add additional levels of medication safety in the homes we care for,” Moore says.

The Hogans team recruited peopleCare’s AR Goudie Long-Term Care Home in Kitchener to receive a trial delivery.

“Innovating is in peopleCare's DNA," says Brent Gingerich, peopleCare’s Chairman and CEO. "In our 50+ years of providing exceptional care for seniors, doing things differently, embracing new ideas and early adoption of promising new technology has been the fuel that drives our vision to change the world of senior living.”

Left to right: Anthony Miller (School of Pharmacy), Florin Perte (peopleCare), Becky Agar (Hogans) retrieving medications after drone lands. Photo provided by AirMatrix.

Members of the School of Pharmacy’s Technology in Pharmacy Student Network also attended the trial flights to support loading medications on the drones and to evaluate the medications’ condition pre- and post-flight. They also provided user experience feedback.

“This project felt like a glimpse into the future,” George Daskalakis says, club president. “It’s inevitable that emerging technologies like drone delivery will one day become the norm and as health-care providers — or future health-care providers — it benefits us to be proactive in engaging with companies that are doing this innovation.”

Future opportunities

With a successful trial run day behind them, Waite and Miller have big plans going forward. They will continue to collect data from the project and publish research papers on what they have learned so far and are collaborating with AirMatrix to develop new trial cases and devise solutions to some of the challenges and opportunities presented by drone medication delivery.

“For us, this partnership has been an incredible adventure into the technology world,” Waite says. “The best part is that our collaborators at AirMatrix tell us that, for them, this project has been an adventure into the world of health care. We’ve been thrilled to partner with AirMatrix and the region to learn together and are excited to explore other collaborations in the world of health and technology.”

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Lost and found

MSC MSC MarComm Co-op — Wed, 30 Sep 2020 09:30:05 +0000

��ݮ��Ƶ PhD student creates app that prevents you from losing your phone

Every month, some 23,000 Android devices are stolen or lost, with more than two-thirds never being recovered.

Even with Google’s Find my Device or Apple’s Find my iPhone, users are subjected to gaps in retrieval solutions, whether it’s from a dead battery or a thief has put the device on airplane mode.

But not anymore.

For Jiayi Chen, a PhD candidate in the Cheriton School of Computer Science, combining both device and data loss–prevention solutions into one app bridges these gaps.

“I was in a restaurant and after I finished my meal, I left without taking my phone,” Chen recounts. “I was out the door and heading toward the bus stop when a waiter ran out and said, ‘Hey, you forgot your phone.’ I was lucky, but it got me thinking. What if a smartphone could detect whether it’s about to become unattended and then could alert the owner while the device was still within reach?”

That’s exactly the kind of system the Cryptography, Security and Privacy (CrySP) group student helped developed.

The app, Chaperone, uses a sonar-type method known as “active acoustic sensing” to detect a smartphone owner’s movements and locks the phone while alerting the owner when detecting a situation could lead to loss.

“When Chaperone is installed on an Android phone, it uses the device’s speakers to emit an inaudible high-frequency acoustic signal. It then detects the echo of that signal — its reflection from the phone’s owner as well as other people and nearby objects — using its microphone. Based on the changes in the reflected signals, Chaperone can distinguish nearby moving people from static objects. Then, Chaperone extracts the owner’s moving pattern and determines if the owner is about to leave the device unattended.”

While many loss-prevention solutions require additional hardware such as Bluetooth devices or wearable radio frequency ID tags, Chaperone is a stand-alone solution. All smartphones have a microphone and speaker, so they can perform active acoustic sensing.

To increase accuracy in detection, Chaperone uses four modules before alerting its user: trigger module (sensing user’s movement), acoustic-sensing module (detecting the echo using the device’s microphone to calculate distance and speed of movement), user-tracking module (locating the smartphone’s user in the immediate environment through echo filtration), and decision-making module (alerting the user if necessary).

You don’t have to worry about the alert being a blaring horn either.

“Because the alert is selected based on information collected by the trigger module, it’s tailored to the context,” Chen says. “That means if environmental noise is low as in a library, a gentle ringtone would be sufficient to get the user’s attention.”

So far, more than 1,300 experiments across different real-world scenarios have been evaluated. In 93 per cent of cases, Chaperone positively detected a user leaving their phone.

“Our current solution is designed based on a smartphone running Android 6.0 or newer,” Chen says. “The code is freely available so anyone can download it or improve it. Our experimental data and source code for our prototype is available on GitHub. This will help other researchers as well as let them contribute to the project.”

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Training the manufacturing workforce of tomorrow

Stephanie Longeway — Thu, 02 Jan 2020 16:49:20 +0000

��ݮ��Ƶ lab helps fill industry demand for additive manufacturing skills

Mihaela Vlasea
Professor, Faculty of Engineering
> Associate Research Director, Multi-Scale Additive Manufacturing Lab

Grace Kurosad reaches into a large 3D metal printing machine that uses automated mechanisms and lasers to build metal parts, layer by layer, from a powder substrate.

It’s a high-tech skill. Wearing full personal protective equipment to keep her from breathing any of the metal powder, Kurosad has become something of machine whisperer. She keeps the sophisticated parts humming along in the Multi-Scale Additive Manufacturing (MSAM) lab at the University of ��ݮ��Ƶ, where she now works full time.

The MSAM lab is Canada’s largest academic-based research and development facility in metal additive manufacturing. It has every class of state-of-the-art 3D metal printing machinery, including custom 3D printers that work with composites such as graphene, polymers and ceramics.

Kurosad has found a whole new career in additive manufacturing through the lab.

She previously worked as a technician at smartphone maker BlackBerry and subsequently at wearable device maker Thalmic Labs in ��ݮ��Ƶ. But she wanted a career with long-term potential and she saw it in additive manufacturing.

“You can see how it has a lot of potential for the future,” Kurosad says. “It’s exciting to see, for example, a part for a human body being built. That’s why I joined this team. I will never get bored.”

With the decline of traditional factories in recent decades, few young people think about careers in making parts. Instead, they see the future in software or maybe robotics. Now, with faster and better 3D printing that can custom-make durable parts in one piece without the expense of the tooling, a whole new chapter in manufacturing has begun.

“Additive manufacturing is reshaping the way manufacturing looks,” says Mihaela Vlasea, a professor in mechanical and mechatronics engineering and associate director at the MSAM lab at ��ݮ��Ƶ.

Vlasea is part of the MSAM team that includes research director Ehsan Toyserkani and managing director Vladimir Paserin. The lab now has a complement of more than 60 people including faculty, postdoctoral fellows and research associates, technicians, graduate and undergraduate students. In addition, more than 15 affiliated faculty and their students across campus engage in research activities.

One of Vlasea’s PhD students, Gitanjali Shanbhag, is researching biomedical applications to advance health care. “The role of additive is becoming increasingly important in health care through its utilization in implant design, surgical planning, therapeutic delivery and tissue engineering,” Shanbhag explains. In addition to doing research and development with industry partners, the lab is developing the talent pool to fill the gap in those industries.

Many companies in the aerospace sector, for example, are scaling up their additive manufacturing production. New companies are also setting up shop to produce parts and services for their customer base. But finding people with the right skills is not easy.

“There is a huge need for people with these skills,” Vlasea says. “We are finding that we can barely hold on to our students as they finish their degrees. Sometimes they leave for industry and come back to finish their degrees part-time.”

The MSAM lab strives for strong research programs and courses in support of graduate programs in additive manufacturing and runs regular workshops benefiting professionals working in area industries. The lab has collaborations with more than 22 industry partners. Industries often send their engineers to learn about the latest developments and then replicate what the lab is doing on their factory floors.

People tend to think of 3D printing as a simple matter of pushing a button to have a perfect part pop out, but it’s enormously complex. “It takes a lot of effort to be able to define all of the little levers in the process to generate quality parts,” Vlasea says.

Additive manufacturing requires multidisciplinary skills and integrates everything from materials science and product design to robotics and computational data analytics, she says. Even areas such as machine learning and computer vision are part of it.

“It's bringing more excitement back into manufacturing, especially for this young generation of students who live in the digital space,” Vlasea says.

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2020 Forbes 30 Under 30

Natalie Quinlan — Tue, 17 Dec 2019 14:40:12 +0000

��ݮ��Ƶ celebrates its connection to the latest group of up-and-coming entrepreneurs

From chip-resistant windshields to streamlining access to education, the 2020 Forbes 30 Under 30 list highlights five entrepreneurs with University of ��ݮ��Ƶ connections. Take a look at the innovators who are shaking up some of the world’s most competitive industries, one product at a time.

Chong Shen

Khanjan Desai

Chong Shen and Khanjan Desai

Ages: 29

Company: Co-founders, Alchemy

Education: Faculty of Engineering – Nanotechnology Engineering

Category: Manufacturing & Industry

Chong Shen (BASc ’13) and Khanjan Desai (BASc ’13) are co-founders of Alchemy, a startup that produces a thin plastic membrane known as "ExoShield." The product affixes to windshields to prevent chipping and cracking. Shen and Desai started working together in 2013 during their fourth year at ��ݮ��Ƶ. For their final project, the pair developed a solution that was sprayed onto windshields to keep frost and ice from forming overnight. Since then, iterations have led them to develop the ExoShield, which they claim to be six times more impact-resistant than regular windshields. To date, Alchemy has raised $3.4 million in funding and has remained local, basing its offices in Kitchener.

Martin Basiri

Age: 31

Company: Co-founder & CEO, ApplyBoard

Education: Faculty of Engineering - Mechanical Engineering

Category: Education & Big Money

Left to right: Meti Basiri (CMO), Martin Basiri (CEO), Massi Basiri (COO).

Martin Basiri (MASc ’13) is the co-founder and CEO of ApplyBoard, a platform that streamlines the application process for students looking to study abroad. Missing the Forbes cut-off by two years, Martin (who is 31-years-old) runs ApplyBoard with his younger twin brothers Meti and Massi—the pair (who graduated from Conestoga) made this year’s list at the age of 26. With $55 million in funding, the Ontario-based company has 300 employees across eight countries and has assisted around 70,000 students with tuition payments and visas. Originally from Iran, Basiri moved to Canada for school and in 2015 launched ApplyBoard out of Velocity with one goal in mind: to make confusing application processes seamless and more accessible. In the future, the company hopes to pursue partnerships with airlines and banks. Basiri was recently honoured with the Young Alumni Achievement Medal by ��ݮ��Ƶ Engineering and, during his time at ��ݮ��Ƶ, won the Gold Medal from the Geneva International Invention.

Richard Henkel

Age: 28

Company: Product Lead, Riot Games

Education: Faculty of Arts – Liberal Studies

Category: Games

Richard Henkel (BA ’15) is the product lead of Riot Games, a platform that develops and publishes online action, adventure, casual and multi-player games. At just 28-years-old, Henkel leads the team that created popular League of Legends spinoff, Teamfight Tactics. Released in June 2019, the game now attracts more than 33 million players per month, motivating the company to announce the creation of a standalone mobile version in 2020. During his time at ��ݮ��Ƶ, Henkel completed co-op terms as a data analyst and project manager at BlackBerry and an admissions officer at the Leysin American School in Switzerland. Henkel credits ��ݮ��Ƶ as his lucky charm for breaking into the gaming industry, claiming that it was the University’s recognizable name that helped secure his job.

Ryan Gibson

Age: 26

Company: Co-founder & CTO, Agora Systems

Education: Faculty of Engineering – Electrical Engineering

Category: Enterprise Technology

Ryan Gibson (BASc ’16) is the co-founder and chief technology officer (CTO) at Agora Systems, a materials management platform for modern construction companies. Gibson met his co-founder, Maria Rioumine, during a co-op work term at venture firm 8VC. The pair drew on Gibson’s four-generation family history in the construction business to create Agora, which helps contractors buy and manage the materials for their projects. In October 2018, Agora received $4.1 million from nine investors including 8VC, Index Ventures and Charlie Songhurst. During his time at ��ݮ��Ƶ, Gibson completed engineering co-op jobs at Google, Facebook and Microsoft.

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��ݮ��Ƶ students are the first in Canada to pilot Lime e-scooters

Sam Toman — Fri, 24 May 2019 15:41:50 +0000

When looking for a campus with the right stuff to trial its scooters, Lime saw ��ݮ��Ƶ’s courage and commitment to embrace new technology as irresistible

Anyone trying a Lime scooter for the first time can’t believe how fast they go. It’s a great analogy for the pace at which exciting new mobility options are hitting our streets. That the University of ��ݮ��Ƶ was picked as the first campus in Canada to pilot the sustainable e-scooters shows just how fast ��ݮ��Ƶ is emerging as Canada’s leader in mobility technology.

The age of car-dominance is ending. Few predict automobiles will become extinct, but they will likely become just one choice amongst many in how we get around our cities. There probably isn’t a more visceral example of this shift than the east side of campus.

Students on e-scooters zoom past the $4.5 million research facility for autonomous vehicles currently under-construction near the Engineering 7 building. The shiny new light rail transit trains glide along beside them. On the other side of University Avenue is the sprawling parking lot A which looks more and more like a relic of the past as the next generation of commuters buzz past on e-bikes, scooters, fixed-gear cruisers and on-foot.

“The way we get around is changing. These emerging trends in mobility are partly due to new technology, but also changing attitudes. People of all ages want healthier and more sustainable ways to get around,” says Jennifer Dean, a professor in ��ݮ��Ƶ’s School of Planning. “More mobility options beyond the automobile mean physically healthier communities, but also more inclusive and socially connected communities.”

Dean’s pioneering research helped establish that seniors’ independent mobility, physical activity and social interaction were significantly enhanced when given the opportunity to travel on motor assisted e-bikes. Now, she’s turning her attention to policy and how governments can clear a path for new forms of mobility to be implemented safely as well as enhance existing transportation options for sustainably-minded or health focused populations.

Watch video on YouTube

“When the city of waterloo and R+T Park collaborated with lime for the e-scooter pilot last fall, we were excited by the opportunity to examine how e-scooters may be integrated into the existing transportation networks and eventually the new LRT system. The pilot also provides a novel opportunity for students to learn about early adoption of new micro-mobilities and the implications for other road and trail users.” says Dean. “Now that the scooters are officially active on campus, ��ݮ��Ƶ becomes a living laboratory for studying micro-mobility in the Canadian context.”

In particular, her project will help set the recommendations for how e-scooters should be incorporated into the Ontario highway traffic act and in similar legislation in other provinces across Canada.

The scooters, which have a top speed of 23km/h off campus, would be limited to 15km/h on campus. The scooters are deployed at designated locations starting 7 a.m. each day and are removed from pilot boundary after 9 p.m. This map shows where the vehicles will be avilable for pickup.

The cost is $1 to unlock a scooter and $0.30 per-minute to ride. Lime accepts all insurance liability for those using their scooters and riders are prompted to use a helmet while riding the scooters.

“While ��ݮ��Ƶ was eager to pilot the project, there was also careful consideration about its impact on campus and in particular students’ safety,” says Mike Pereira, manager of business development at ��ݮ��Ƶ’s David Johnston Research + Technology Park. Pereira who helped shepherd the first phase of the pilot with the city of ��ݮ��Ƶ, is now helping facilitate its expansion to campus.

“Lime could have chosen any campus in Canada to try this, but they chose ��ݮ��Ƶ because of our history of technological experimentation and our reputation for being open-minded to adopting and studying the latest mobility technology,” say Pereira.

The pilot project on ��ݮ��Ƶ campus ends August 16th.

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Fighting wildfires with artificial intelligence

Stephanie Longeway — Tue, 13 Nov 2018 15:09:49 +0000

Combining machine learning techniques with real-world scenarios to combat forest fires

As our climate changes and forest fires increase in number and intensity, what does our future with forest fires look like?

British Columbia experienced a state of emergency this summer when wildfires burned across the province, destroying more area than in any other season on record. The fire currently raging in California has become the deadliest wildfire in the state's modern history.

With climate scientists predicting warmer, drier weather in many regions across Canada, finding solutions to combat the devastation of forest fires has never been more pressing.

For Mark Crowley, the answer lies in the potential of artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning for prediction, modelling and decision making in tackling the challenging problems created by wildfires.

Crowley is an electrical and computer engineering professor at the University of ��ݮ��Ƶ. He is also a member of the ��ݮ��Ƶ Artificial Intelligence Institute and the ��ݮ��Ƶ Institute for Complexity and Innovation, and a research fellow at Element AI.

Before coming to ��ݮ��Ƶ, Crowley did post-doctorate work at Oregon State University on robust decision-making under uncertainty in simulated forest fire scenarios.

During a forest fire, important decisions must be made with a high level of accuracy, including how the fire may spread, issues regarding suppression and treatment, and the logistics of moving people and machinery. These decisions are complicated by the complex dynamics of wildfires and challenging value trade-offs involved — such as determining the immediate and long-term costs and benefits of particular actions.

Crowley’s research explores how improved data and modelling can help manage this complexity. AI and machine learning can be used to gain a deeper understanding of the costs and rewards of actions, maximize decisions to result in preferred outcomes and identify patterns to allow better decisions.

Computational sustainability

One of Crowley’s guiding inspirations is in the field of computational sustainability — combining machine learning techniques with real-world scenarios to help solve some of the most challenging problems related to sustainability.

His research goes beyond forest fire management to multiple areas of artificial intelligence and machine learning to seek dependable and transparent ways to augment human decision-making.

Watch Crowley explain how AI can be used to enhance human decision making at the AI for Good summit.

Watch video on YouTube

Crowley will be a panelist at the ��ݮ��Ƶ Innovation Summit

Crowley was recently invited to present his research at the British Columbia AI Wildfire Symposium. He is scheduled to return to Vancouver on November 13 to provide his insights as a panelist at the ��ݮ��Ƶ Innovation Summit.

The ��ݮ��Ƶ Innovation Summit will explore innovations in technology with big potential to help address global environmental challenges. Crowley will be joined by Harold Javid from Microsoft, Kirsten Sutton from SAP Labs Canada and Jean Andrey, dean of the Faculty of Environment at the University of ��ݮ��Ƶ, to discuss new approaches to achieving environmental sustainability through technology.

To learn more about the event, please visit the ��ݮ��Ƶ Innovation Summit website.

Engineering

Research

Advancements in Big and Small Manufacturing

The future of tech at ��ݮ��Ƶ

MSC MSC MarComm Co-op — Tue, 29 May 2018 20:58:06 +0000

120 guests attended the Beyond Impact: TrueNorth@U��ݮ��Ƶ event on campus to hear about everything from experiential education to entrepreneurship

As humans adapt to a future of interacting and working with robots, researcher Brandon DeHart asks the question: “What happens if a 200-kilogram industrial robot falls on a worker in a warehouse?”

While artificial intelligence is making its way into everything from health care to financial services, DeHart cautions there is still a long road ahead before physical robots are seamlessly integrated into our society.

“A robot has to be 1000 times better than humans before we will trust it,” says DeHart, the University of ��ݮ��Ƶ’s RoboHub manager and PhD student in the Faculty of Engineering. DeHart is researching robotic balance and gait to ensure robots don’t pose a risk to humans and are able to adapt to, literally and figuratively, bumps in the road.

A NAO robot on display at the RoboHub booth.

Innovators gather at the Sedra Student Design Centre

Approximately 120 guests gathered in the Sedra Student Design Centre on Tuesday for the Beyond Impact: TrueNorth@U��ݮ��Ƶ event. DeHart and other students and faculty shared their research and technology with government and industry leaders who are in ��ݮ��Ƶ Region this week for Communitech’s True North conference. Earlier in the day, participants learned about the University of ��ݮ��Ƶ’s unique approach to entrepreneurship, commercialization and intellectual property at a panel in the Mike & Ophelia Lazaridis Quantum-Nano Centre on campus.

DeHart said the University’s RoboHub will be a state-of-the-art 1000 m³ robotics test facility in the new Engineering 7 building, which is set to open in the fall. The RoboHub will open new avenues of multidisciplinary research to explore the potential of combined robotic technologies. It will enable researchers to operate heterogeneous robot teams and simulate complex, real-world environments.

A MOVO robot, which uses a Kinect One sensor to see.

The research team at RoboHub is made up of experts in mechatronics, microrobotics, autonomous robotics, multi-agent networks, magnetic levitation, nonlinear control systems, artificial intelligence, and human-robot interaction.

The Beyond Impact campus event also included displays from the ��ݮ��Ƶ Centre for Automotive Research (WatCAR) and several student design teams including ��ݮ��Ƶp and the ��ݮ��Ƶ Alternative Fuels Team (UWAFT).

Campus

Research

Quantum-Nano Revolution

Advancements in Big and Small Manufacturing