Grants and Contributions

Photonic generation of millimeter-wave frequencies (30 GHz–300 GHz) has recently attracted great interest from both academia and industry, particularly for applications in future seamless fiber-wireless integrated optical access networks (OAN), such as both front-haul and back-haul of 5G and beyond (6G) of mobile wireless networks. A wireless access network (WAN) at millimeter-wave bands has large bandwidth for high speed indoor/hotspot communications to be utilized to support the combination of small cells and millimeter-wave radio, and fiber-optic communications plays an important role in both the back-haul and front-haul networks. The objective of the project is to implement heterogeneous photonic integration to develop fully integrated microwave photonic systems for the generation and transmission of millimeter-wave signals be used in 5G and beyond wireless networks.

Autonomous mobile manipulators are a novel class of autonomous systems that can be used in many advanced automation and manufacturing processes. Due to the high complexity of unified trajectory planning and control, current industrial solutions often decouple the autonomous platform and the attached manipulator, treating them as isolated systems. This project will focus on the development and validation of a unified multi-objective control system and trajectory planner to improve the performance and robustness of autonomous mobile manipulators for tasks such as force or visual servoing. In addition, artificial intelligence techniques will be explored for the optimization of the forward and inverse kinematic models of the autonomous mobile platform. Successful completion of this project will deliver HQP and high impact publications providing transferable knowledge directly into the autonomous mobile robotic industry and their supporting end-users within Canada.

Robotic based processing is a very attractive option for manufacturers due to the flexibility and re-configurability of the systems as business and market demands change. Within the robotic space, collaborative robots further extend the flexibility of traditional robotized systems by incorporating highly sensitive internal sensors to better perceive the environment around it. These sensors can be used to provide a source of time-series signals representing the process. This project will look to develop a generalized semi-supervised machine learning based predictive framework to estimate the surface roughness of a machine finished component to better improve the efficiency of robotic finishing applications. With an accurate predictor of the surface roughness derived from the processing data provided by the collaborative robot, requirements for additional external inspection can be reduced or removed. A fundamental component of the project is to ensure generalization of the framework, allowing for extendibility into other collaborative robotic manufacturing processes.

This project sets out to determine the design of new optically active group IV semiconductor quantum materials. The proposed research seeks to establish the foundation of future quantum devices exploiting hole spin-photon interface in a platform compatible with processing standards of the semiconductor industry. For decades, Si-compatible low-dimensional systems and quantum devices have been exploiting either tensile strained Si or compressively strained Germanium (Ge) quantum wells (QWs), which are the only group IV systems that can currently be routinely obtained using SiGe as growth template and barrier layers. For quantum information, the former has been used as the building block for electron spin qubits, whereas the latter has been explored in new schemes for hole spin qubits. In this project, the team will explore a third low-dimension system recently developed. This system consists of highly tensile strained Ge QW integrated on an optically active platform. Our experimental plan aims at establishing the basic properties of light holes in this quantum structure and evaluate its relevance to emerging quantum technologies.

HCI research involving simulating (digital twinning) IoTenabled objects and how users may interact with them. In the context of field maintenance of complex IoT-enabled objects, the question arises of exactly how a technician would interact with the IoT-derived data and other maintenance information. The project will look at the data and information by having the technician interact with a digital twin of the object and related IoT data. To identify effective ways in which a technician would interact with this digital twin and its data, the project will implement 3D interaction and visualization techniques and conduct human experiments to assess the efficacy of those techniques. While the project will focus on aircraft engine maintenance use cases, the more general HCI research issue is how to best support technicians in their interaction with IoT-enabled devices. Consequently, the results of this project would apply to a variety of other domains as well.

HCI research involving simulating (digital twinning) IoTenabled objects and how users may interact with them. In the context of field maintenance of complex IoT-enabled objects, the question arises of exactly how a technician would interact with the IoT-derived data and other maintenance information. The project will look at the data and information by having the technician interact with a digital twin of the object and related IoT data. To identify effective ways in which a technician would interact with this digital twin and its data, the project will implement 3D interaction and visualization techniques and conduct human experiments to assess the efficacy of those techniques. While the project will focus on aircraft engine maintenance use cases, the more general HCI research issue is how to best support technicians in their interaction with IoT-enabled devices. Consequently, the results of this project would apply to a variety of other domains as well.

The proposed project aims to provide security to remote healthcare delivery efforts in Canada for in-home patients and geographically remote Canadian regions.
Project Objectives:
1. Propose secure authentication protocols for IoT systems in remote healthcare systems
2. Validate the security of the proposed authentication protocols
3. Develop embedded processor arrays for fast and secure elliptic curve encryption
Enhance protocol security using data flow computing and activity obfuscation

The purpose of this project is to provide funding to the association to support market development activities to expand export opportunities for the Canadian wood products industry.

The purpose of this project is to provide funding to the association to support market development activities to expand export opportunities for the Canadian wood products industry.

To facilitate Indigenous participation in dialogues, increase cumulative effects knowledge and support improved understanding of impacts of resource development.