Canada is one of the largest canola producing countries. The industry contributes about $20 billion revenue to the Canadian economy. Currently, canola farmers rely on the weather forecast (temperature, moisture, etc.) to decide whether to apply a fungicide. As the Internet-of-Things and sensor technologies get more advanced, farmers are deserved to have better technologies for intelligent farming. In this project, we propose the design of Internet-of-Things devices to monitor Sclerotinia sclerotiorum, a deadly airborne spore for canola.

Advances in engineering technology and requirements for sustainable development are main drivers for changes and innovations in the current construction industry. The paradigm shift to precast construction moves conventional field construction efforts into the controlled environment of an offsite manufacturing facility.

Synauta is a startup bringing the world's best Internet of Things solutions to water utilities. Our deep industry knowledge prepares utilities for true connectivity to realize energy savings. We provide cyber security, sensors and software. In this project we will create a temperature prediction algorithm to save energy for water treatment plants. More energy can be saved if operators can plan to make more treated water when temperatures are high and less treated water when temperatures are lower. Over a week, the amount of water produced would be the same, but less energy would be used.

EPCOR Distribution and Transmission Inc., an electric utility based in Edmonton is carrying out inspections on a fixed time interval for all of its distribution assets. In the case of pad-mounted distribution transformers, many of the time-based inspections resulted in the decision of “no action required”. This project aims to investigate the inspection data and develop a simple mathematical model to define the optimal inspection schedule for pad-mounted distribution transformers. This project will reduce the inspection costs of EPCOR Distribution and Transmission Inc.

This project is designed to assess both natural variability and the future change of forest productivity and natural disaster risks that are related to climate. These areas are important to study as climatic change is projected to impact northern latitudes more strongly and disasters, such as floods, droughts, and fires, are predicted to increasingly impact human populations and infrastructure. To assess these components, a combination of satellite remote sensing, in-situ and UAV data will be utilized in conjunction with large ensemble modelling.

Municipal wastewater contains excessive nutrients, which when discharged without sufficient treatment can cause eutrophication in the receiving water bodies. Digested sludge liquor, the produce water generated from the treatment of sludge that is produced from municipal wastewater treatment plant contains high concentrations of ammonia that is toxic to aquatic biota and requires further treatment.

This project involves designing a portable device for measuring concentrations of certain metabolites in a person’s blood or urine. This is an easy-to-use device that connects to a smartphone to display a final result based on measurements of multiple components to generate a specific health diagnosis. Different tests can be run on the same device. The device works by loading custom-made fluidic chips into the device which contains dried chemical reactions.

Carbon dioxide is produced from the combustion of fossil fuels and as a by-product of many chemical processes. The increasing concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere has now been decisively linked to global climate change. The use CO2 as a carbon-building block has attracted much attention due to its low cost, ease availability, and its potential to substitute fossil fuel-based feedstocks, in addition to the clear positive environmental effect of removing it from the atmosphere.

Tungsten carbide-based coatings are used to protect oil field equipment from wear and corrosion. The coatings are carbide-metal composites and are applied by a spraying process. By applying the coatings it is possible to extend the lifetimes of critical equipment such as pumps and valves, and avoid unplanned outages. The spraying process used to deposit the coatings produces a substantial amount of waste powder . This project will design a method to recycle the scrap powders to enable them to be used to produce industrial -quality protective coatings.

The forestry sector is one of the important pillars in the Canadian contributing to 1,6% for the country`s GDP. Access forest structure and quantifying leaf and wood elements is essential to understand productivity and environmental contribution of trees and forested areas. Light Detection And Range (LiDAR) produces a 3-Dimension point cloud with high spatial resolution, therefore, Terrestrial Laser Scanners (TLS) arises as an important tool to measure efficiently forestry metrics fast and at a low cost.