Resident killer whale populations in British Columbia (BC) are listed under the Species at Risk Act (SARA) as “threatened” and “endangered” for the northern and southern populations, respectively. Common pollutants such as PCBs and PBDEs, are considered a significant impediment to the recovery of resident killer whales. These chemicals bioaccumulate throughout the food web and strongly affect apex predators in marine ecosystems.

To reduce the greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from goods transportation low-carbon fuels can be combined with high-efficiency engine systems. Gaseous fuels such renewable natural gas and hydrogen offer low net GHG emissions from efficient direct-injection engines. These engines use high fuel injection pressures that need to be supplied during operation by a compressor on the vehicle. This project will investigate the technical pathways that could provide the desired fuel pressures.

In today’s landscape, it is important for businesses to acknowledge the complex histories of the land on which they operate and engage with truth and reconciliation within their policies and practices. The goal of this project is to support Helicat Canada (HCC) with its reconciliation efforts with local Indigenous Peoples by developing a strategic engagement plan to support mutually beneficial relations between HCC and its members and Indigenous Peoples.

Rapidly detecting SARS-CoV-2 in infected individuals remains a critical problem in Canada. The current detection method is hindered by the need for highly trained personnel and expensive laboratory equipment. Such requirements cause long wait times and reduce the ability to manage the spread of COVID-19 in our communities. This Mitacs Accelerate project aims at addressing such problems, i.e., developing a rapid, easy-to-use, point of care (POC) detection system for hospitals, airports, long-term care facilities and working places.

Commercial MagnetoRheological (MR) dampers are still bulky and consume relatively high power. Thus new designs to improve their energy consumption and total mass are required so that they can be used in applications such as prosthetics and small electric vehicles that are restricted by energy consumption and mass. To address the above issues, in this research we focus on the design of a MagnetoRheological damper to achieve small mass with low energy consumption for commercial use.

In this project we want to develop a few AI algorithms for the security and public health monitoring applications that can be implemented on a mobile camera. This camera can be either mounted on the autonomous mobile robot or on the wearable devices that security guards are equipped with. This project is aiming to solve the following challenges: understanding the location of the camera based on the footage, anomaly detection, and action recognition. These goals can be achieved through a combination of deep learning, traditional computer vision, and machine learning methods.

The barriers, trends and opportunities around using electric vehicles as commercial vehicles is not well understood. SFU, together with Fraser Basin Council, are researching the potential opportunities in deploying electric vehicles in commercial vehicle fleets in BC to provide policy advice and to identify the impacts and benefits of electrification.

D-Wave Systems has designed processors based on a scalable architecture that aim to implement quantum annealing, an algorithm that can be used to solve a wide variety of optimization problems. A minimal requirement for a device to perform quantum annealing is that it maintains coherence throughout an appreciable fraction of the annealing protocol. In reality, any quantum annealer will be subject to noise, which leads to decoherence in some form.

A renewable energy source that has not received much attention is tidal and wave energy, although numerous studies have concluded that wave power, and to a lesser extent tidal power, could contribute massive amounts to the overall energy picture. This project aims to explore the feasibility of tidal/wave energy absorption and its storage in the form of on-shore energy bank and using that to power on shore devices/generators.

Among the many significant effects of the novel coronavirus 2019 (COVID-19), Vancouver General Hospital’s (VGH) Department of Psychiatry has observed the impact of the pandemic on the mental health of patients and providers. These circumstances have created unprecedented demand for decisive and rapid action to avert hospital admissions related to mental health, maximize efficiency within hospitals in the context of physical distancing requirements, and improve wrap around care in partnership with community-based psychiatrists and family physicians.