The goal of this project is to explore active sensing strategies to map an environment as precisely and as fast as possible using teams of mobile robots, such as quadrotors and ground robots. Available sensors are assumed to include various types of cameras and RGB-D sensors (kinect), as well as standard navigation sensors (inertial, high […]

Atrial fibrillation is the most frequent rhythm disorder in humans (nearly 250,000 patients in Canada). It often leads to severe complications such as heart failure and stroke. Diagnosis of this arrhythmia is mainly performed through the inspection of electrical signal recordings (electrograms and electrocardiograms). To develop and validate new diagnostic tools, it is necessary to […]

Our research group examines techniques for mitigation of impairments in optical communications links and for increasing the capacity of those links. We address both optical and digital signal processing (DSP) solutions from a systems perspective. Maximizing the capacity of fiber communications is the rally cry for research in optical communi-cations this decade, with focus on […]

Signals outputted from microelectromechanical systems (MEMS) transducers are often very weak, and the sensing interface circuits must exhibit very low noise levels to enable a large dynamic range of detection. Capacitive sensing interfaces exhibit high temperature stability, low power consumption, low noise, and are appropriate to implementations in CMOS. Different methods, such as switched capacitor […]

The conventional (indirect) georeferencing of remote sensing imagery requires the use of control points that link known positions in the imagery to known positions in map coordinates. The number of control points depends on the amount of distortion in the imagery, method of transformation and desired level of accuracy, but it is often large. Overall, […]

Successful research in environmental remote sensing relies on multiple-view approaches to data collection. In multi-stage remote sensing, data are collected at different geographic scales. Low-altitude, high-resolution aerial observations bridge the gap between in situ and satellite-based observations. These can be achieved by unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), with minimum logistical support and lower operation/maintenance costs than […]

In many clinical laboratory and pathology testing procedures, visual examination of microscopic slides is needed, e.g., to classify disease developments, to detect the interactions of micro-organisms, to assess the effectiveness of drugs, to determine cell viability and proliferation, etc. These tasks can be found in many important clinical applications, including cancer research, hematology, pharmacology, and […]

One of the next frontiers of integrated photonics is surely represented by the challenge of extending the use of optical techniques to nanometer length scales, overcoming the limit imposed by diffraction, which does not allow focusing light on dimensions smaller than roughly half a wavelength. Metallic nanostructures have proven to be an efficient way to […]

Video surveillance is ubiquitous, which has severe implications for an individual’s privacy and personal freedom. Consequently there is an increasing interest to design video surveillance systems with built-in privacy protections. This is part of the larger “privacy by design” initiative led by the Office of the Information and Privacy Commissioner of Ontario. This project specifically […]

Knowledge-intensive enterprises (KIE) play an important role in the knowledge-based economy (OECD, 2007). Knowledge-intensive enterprises can be loosely and preliminary defined as organizations that offer to the market the use of fairly sophisticated knowledge or knowledge-based products and services (Doloreux & Shearmur, 2011). Knowledge management is important for both large enterprises and small and medium-size […]

Power train electrification is currently one of the best solutions in order to design cleaner vehicles. Nevertheless, the internal combustion engine is still essential to ensure high vehicle autonomy (over 500 km) and fast re-fuel (under 5 minutes). To obtain a commercially-competitive electric vehicle, important progress must still be realized concerning the energy storage and […]

A large amount of health-related data is available only in unstructured form (“free-form text”). To share this data for secondary purposes, it is necessary to de-identify it to protect against inappropriate disclosure of personal health information (PHI). PARAT Text is Privacy Analytics’ de-identification software for unstructured data. It automatically discovers and marks PHI in a […]