Innovative Projects Realized

Research and development of automated safety testing and certification of commercial downconverters

Alpha Technologies, a Canadian leader in power electronics, and the University of British Columbia have teamed up to develop new automated testing technologies to speed the development and certification of power supply products. The automated test systems will run the products through their paces simulating real world scenarios and environmental conditions. The ability to quickly test designs and prototypes will improve design and development time as well as improve the safety and reliability of these products that power critical equipment like small cell networks. These networks monitor telecommunication hubs and electrical sub-stations. Which constantly transmit critical data that keep our homes powered and our cell phones working. Making our world safer and helping Canada to continue to be a leader in power converter technology.

The application of UAV-based optical and thermal imagery on the estimation of intra-field soil and crop parameters

The efficient monitoring of soil and crop parameters is essential for crop stress evaluation and yield forecast in agriculture, yet most remote sensing studies focus on regional-scale soil and crop parameters estimation using satellite data. Satellite remote sensing is difficult to obtain both high spatial and temporal resolution data with a low-cost in field-scale. Currently, UAV-based remote sensing is a flexible and reliable approach could provide proper data for intra-field monitoring. This study proposes real-time and low-cost approaches for soil and crop parameters monitoring using UAV-based remote sensing in field scale.

Improving Productivity in Bioreactors through control of foaming and cell heterogeneity

Heterogeneity of cell populations is a common occurrence in bioreactor operations (Lara et al., 2006) and is typically caused by processing of cell cultures in vessels of varying sizes and process conditions and by deficient mixing. Most bioreactor research deals with average conditions of the cell population with respect to quantities such as dissolved oxygen and extracellular nutrient level, while these averages actually correspond to very different distributions of individual cell growth and productivity. Thus, in the production of vaccine, different cells in the culture may exhibit at any given time different growth and may produce different amount of antigen.

The main goal of this proposed study is to improve bioreactor productivity by controlling cell heterogeneity. We propose to manipulate the cell distribution at the beginning of the culture to improve productivity of the process. TO BE CONT’D

Modèle prédictif d’évaluation de la valeur marchande des joueurs de l’UEFA

La recherche proposée consiste en l’élaboration d’un modèle statistique permettant de prédire la valeur marchande des joueurs de soccer de l’UEFA. L’objectif d’un tel modèle est de permettre d’évaluer plus rapidement, efficacement et précisément la valeur des joueurs afin de faciliter les transactions, l’évaluation des actifs de la ligue et le moment propice pour effectuer des changements à la valeur aux livres comptables de la ligue, par exemple. Ce projet en collaboration avec la firme de consultation Accuracy permettra à l’entreprise de dégager un avantage concurrentiel important en apportant une contribution importante aux outils d’analytique des sports.

Intelligent Camera Switching

The “Intelligent Camera Switching” research project’s goal is to understand how multiple cameras can be utilized in a meeting space to ensure that remote participants have the best view of the people and activities that take place in the room. This “Best view” should be thought of as providing the best context for activities. A traditional system with one camera does not afford people in the room to move around freely and interact with one another or with whiteboards or interactive displays without the remote people losing context.
The research will attempt to create an automated system for controlling the camera feed to the remote people based on what individual cameras see, what a microphone array hears and where it hears it, where the attention is in the room and what the remote people want to see. TO BE CONT’D

Microgrid’s Performance Modeling & Optimization Method Based on Data Mining & Artificial Intelligence

With the maturity of renewable energy technology in recent years, micro-network has become an ideal power supply solution to the remote villages and islands. Recently, researchers have tried to reduce the cost of the system based on ideal assumptions. However, the factors that actually affect the system life cycle cost are varied. Including the control of the system, the maintenance mode of the system, the geographical factors of the power station and the configuration of the system will greatly affect the cycle cost of the whole system. This project attempts to find all the factors that affect the cost from a large number of raw data. The use of artificial intelligence technology will provide users with more accurate optimization program or to provide advice on its maintenance, so as to maximize the micro-grid power supply efficiency and reduce the system’s life cycle costs.

Assessment of Salmonella enterica and Campylobacter jejuni inhibition using lead single domain antibodies in combination with dysregulators of the master protease ClpP

The human pathogenic bacteria Salmonella enterica and Campylobacter jejuni are commonly found in the intestine of poultry. Consumption of infected chicken and eggs, and its derivatives, is the main and most important source of infection outbreaks in humans causing diarrhoea, fevers and abdominal cramps. In some cases, severe diarrhea and dehydration followed by systemic spreading of these infections is life-threatening. At present, no widely effective strategy is available to control both Salmonella and Campylobacter colonization of broiler chickens to prevent the infection in humans. To this end, AbCelex has developed a novel strategy of using single domain antibodies (sdAbs) to control the level of Salmonella and Campylobacter in poultry meat by administering them as feed additives. sdAbs are the smallest antibodies known in nature and are produced by members of the family Camelidae (like camels, llamas and alpacas) and sharks. TO BE CONT’D

Combinaison synergique de levures, enzymes et acides organiques comme alternative efficace, écologique et économique à l’utilisation d’antibiotiques dans l’élevage de poulets

L’utilisation des antibiotiques pour améliorer la croissance chez les animaux a contribué à l’émergence d’une résistance aux antibiotiques. D’où la nécessité de développer des alternatives à l’usage des antibiotiques. Dans ce contexte, ce projet vise à développer une alternative économique, efficace et écologique, soit une formulation à base de levures à l’utilisation d’antibiotiques chez le poulet de chair.
L’objectif du projet est de tester, chez le poulet, un aliment avec une nouvelle formule qui ne contient pas d’antibiotique. En diminuant les doses d’antibiotiques, le projet contribuera à diminuer la pollution dans l’environnement, ainsi que la résistance des bactéries aux antibiotiques. Au niveau de la santé, cela pourrait avoir des incidences sur la qualité de vie de la population établie aux environs des poulaillers et des consommateurs.

Développement du procédé de soudage laser fil froid oscillatoire pour la fabrication de composantes ferroviaires

Bombardier Transport est un chef de file mondial dans l’industrie ferroviaire comprenant des unités de production partout dans le monde. La compagnie souhaite développer une variante novatrice en soudage laser utilisant un mode oscillatoire adaptée à l’aluminium pour la fabrication ferroviaire. Ce mode de soudage permet de modifier la dynamique d’application de l’énergie laser et donc, la microstructure dans la zone soudée (affinement de la taille des grains) et ainsi limiter les problèmes de fissuration à chaud. Ce projet évaluera aussi l’influence du type d’oscillation sur les propriétés mécaniques (fatigue) de l’assemblage afin de diminuer la sensibilité à l’écartement et ainsi diminuer les requis de serrage. Finalement, l’impact des paramètres de soudage laser fil froid oscillatoire sur la vie en fatigue des extrusions avec clips non-structuraux sera étudié. TO BE CONT’D

Electrical Heating for Oil Sands Production

Traditional oil sands production techniques include mining and transporting the sands and in situ production using steam injection, Steam Assisted Gravity Drainage (SAGD). This proposed method will replace or enhance SAGD by using primarily traditional vertical well bores and an induction heating method which will potentially allow the heating effect to expand in diameter as production continues compared to steam injection which relies on steam permeating out from a concentrated injector. Another major energy advantage is that the heating can occur at precisely controlled times to meet the availability of power from sources such as wind. This will be a completely despatchable load of value to the utility. Joslyn Energy will benefit from being able to exploit resources close to an infrastructure or terrain where other production methods are not feasible.

Remote sensing of fluvial environments: Automating the freedom space delineation to support sustainable river management at large scale

Recent advances in hydrogeomorphology promote a sustainable, holistic approach to river management based on the concepts of working with nature, where mobility and flood zones are defined to give more space to rivers for fluvial processes and associated ecosystem services to operate. This sustainable and proactive restoration vision, termed “the freedom space for river” concept, defies the traditional reach-based, engineering interventions which are often temporarily displacing the problems rather than solving them. The objective of this project is to develop novel approaches to implement the freedom space concept through a semi-automation of its cartography at local and regional scales to make it available to municipalities and river managers for entire watersheds. It is hoped that these tools will facilitate the application of freedom space concepts in river management in Quebec and the rest of Canada thanks to the partnership between the environmental company AECOM and the University of Concordia.

Development of State of the Art Instrumentation and Software to Increase Rates of Development and Production in Mines

The goal of this project is to develop instrumentation and software that will enable more efficient and safe mining practices. We will focus on the development of (1) vision-based instrumentation; (2) methods to increase situational awareness; and (3) techniques for automated data acquisition. This research will result in the design of a prototype vision system to improve geological classification and mapping and tablet-based software to improve upon remote situational awareness in mines. The partner organization, the Centre for Excellence in Mining and Innovation, will benefit from the development of new innovative technologies that it can transfer to the mining industry.