Grants and Contributions

This project focuses on the investigation, development, and advancement of enabling technologies related to conformal reconfigurable intelligent surfaces and beamforming antenna technologies to enhance the performance of millimeter-wave wireless links, particularly in non-line-of?sight scenarios. These advancements encompass improvements in radiating surfaces, phase and high efficiency amplitude control for millimeter-wave integrated circuits, flexible substrates, materials, and conductive ink for printable surfaces. These efforts aim to address one of the most crucial and promising emerging wireless technologies. Additionally, the project aims to create technologies and solutions that enable broadband access, particularly in remote and rural areas.

This project advances the Government of Canada commitment to plant an additional two billion new trees over the next 10 years as part of a broader approach to nature-based climate solutions.

Advances exploratory research under the New Beginnings Initiative

The main objective of this research is to support decarbonisation of the construction industry by mainly moving the industry toward modular and offsite construction (MOC), carbon-less materials and implementation of circular economy to significantly reduce carbon emissions, electricity consumptions, material waste, and improve safety and productivity in MOC supply chain network. This will involve: (1) developing smart and green MOC supply chain scheduling and planning system; (2) evaluating precast concrete mixtures used in MOC to identify opportunities to reduce the embodied carbon from the materials; (3) developing BIM-based design system for manufacturing and disassembly (DfMD) supporting to design, construction, and deconstruction; and (4) developing digital twin of process and products for the carbon-less MOC supply chain network and management.

Advances exploratory research under the New Beginnings Initiative

Advances exploratory research under the New Beginnings Initiative

Advances exploratory research under the New Beginnings Initiative

The construction and demolition sector in Canada produces about 4 million
tonnes of waste per year. Of this, an estimated 30-60% is wood waste
which is largely discarded in landfills. Wood fibre insulation is currently not
produced in Canada, and is typically made with new lumber or from pulp
and sawmill waste and petrochemical-based adhesives and additives.
The project will develop a method for making wood fibre insulation from
salvaged wood waste from the construction and demolition sector. The
project includes developing methods for making wood fibre from waste
wood products, researching bio-based adhesives and treatments for wood
fibre insulation board production, and testing the performance of the novel
wood fibre products. Upcycling waste wood into new construction products
will cycle wood back into the built environment, extend wood lifespan, add
value and longevity to a valuable material, and reduce GHG emissions and
new resources required for new construction projects.

Automation in chemistry labs expedites experimentation and minimizes errors, facilitating more cost-effective material and drug discovery. The project aims to automate chemistry labs by developing transferable, adaptable, and generalizable robotic systems using Reinforcement Learning (RL). The project is designed to tackle the challenges of integrating robotic arms into chemistry labs, focusing on minimizing data requirements and enhancing real-world applications of RL. Key objectives include developing a model-based RL method that generalizes across different robotic platforms, creating robust and transferable RL agents, and ensuring the real-time adaptability of robots to evolving lab tasks. The project addresses the unique challenge of manipulating transparent objects and aims to implement high frequency control for agile and responsive robot behavior. By extending the Remote-Local Distributed (ReLoD) system to model-based RL, the project aims to refine the real-time learning and control of lab robots, setting the stage for widespread adoption of automated, efficient, and intelligent lab systems.

This study will investigate interfaces and systems for quantum communication satellites, with two main research thrusts. First is to prepare the groundwork for a link from a Quantum Ground Station (QGS) with the anticipated QEYSSat mission at three ground station sites: the University of Waterloo’s QGS (QGS-UW), the DLR-operated QGS (QGS-OGSOP), and the primary QGS at CSA in St-Hubert (QGS-SHUB). At QGS-SHUB and QGS-UW, this work includes the definition of optical interfaces, mode of operations, transmitter beam quality/wavefront analysis, exchange of data, definition of a channel metrology setup, as well as specifications of ground?based sources and networks. Paper studies on channel characterization will be conducted at QGS-OGSOP. The second is to conduct atmospheric channel and site characterization to study light pollution and how the atmosphere affects the quantum channel at QGS-SHUB and QGS-UW. These studies will lay the ground work for potentially connecting any combination of these sites in the future.