Innovative Projects Realized

ParkChamp – Market Analyst

Focus will be on doing market research and analysis to help support our business development and sales team identify new target markets, find new prospect customers. Focus on staying active in marketing and sales and developing a new understanding of our customer now with the “new normal”. Evaluate if there are opportunities in new segments or new applications for our technology and use this information to help make business decisions about our growth strategy. This will help the company make strategic decisions about our current segment since the commercial real estate sector and commercial parking sector has been impacted significantly by COVID 19. Interns will be responsible for planning and executing research, reports, campaign tactics, and supporting materials and relaying this information internally to the ParkChamp team. This internship will provide our organization with the opportunity to find and cultivate young, local talent. It provides students looking for work – especially during COVID 19 – with an opportunity to build their skills while working for a great local company.

Virtual Funerals Canada

Virtual Funerals Canada is a start-up seeking to provide virtual online funerals for an industry decimated by the COVID-19 virus. Currently, there is no service like this available to families that wish to have an interactive service for their deceased loved ones in many funerals homes and cremation providers. The intern will be working with the organization to bring attention to the organization’s services through research and strategic marketing.

Marketing Project for Admission Advisors

Admission Advisors is an international student recruitment located in Toronto. They mainly recruit students for over 40 different educational institutions across Canada. Their key main focus areas are academic advice & counselling. They provide academic advice to students including information on courses and programs offered by their partners’ institutions, university pathway programs, the Canadian education and legal systems, information about living expenses as an international student in Canada and more. In my MMA program at Queen’s university I have taken multiple interesting courses and now is the time to apply my academic knowledge into the business world. Working as a data & marketing analyst in a company where I can analyze the data of multiple leads and leads which were successful converted into sales, will not only help the company to identify where to spend their marketing budget and efforts but also help the Canadian Institutions to have the right candidate for the programs they are offering.

Development of Residential HVAC and Air Conditioning Demand Management and Control Systems – Residential Peaksaver™ Analysis and Development of Smart Dual Fuel Switching System (SDFSS)

This project aims to leverage the TRCA Archetype Sustainable House facilities, the innovative HVAC, DHW and renewable energy equipment and on-site comprehensive
monitoring system to identify opportunities for systems integration and optimization and, together with the manufacturing partner and utilities, demonstrate a control module that can both inform homeowners of their energy consumption via a user-friendly display and automate system operation of the on-site equipment. The anticipated outcomes of the project will be the demonstration of the ability of “smart” controls to reduce energy consumption and/or shift loads to off-peak times by optimizing the operation of innovative home HVAC equipment. The outcomes will be of importance to government agencies looking for solutions to climate change (such as NRCan), utilities looking for electrical load shaving and peak load shifting opportunities (such as electrical local distribution companies, THESL, and the Ontario Power Authority) and agencies interested in demand side management opportunities.

Modélisation et simulation du comportement dynamique à charge partielle des aubes de turbines hydroélectriques

Les producteurs de turbines hydroélectriques optimisent sans cesse leurs équipements pour des raisons concurrentiels, économiques et environnementales. C’est le cas des turbines
hydroélectrique qui sont poussé à la limite de leur spécification pour répondre aux besoins du marché. Cette réalité augmente considérablement les risques de défaillance des
composantes de la turbine. Estimer le niveau de dommage, l’usure et l’espérance de vie résiduelle des turbines devient donc un aspect essentiel à obtenir. C’est pourquoi une
entreprise comme Andritz Hydro Ltée compile depuis plusieurs années des données sur le comportement dynamique et statique de ses turbines hydroélectriques. Ces données
procurent une source utile d’informations permettant d’étudier le comportement réel d’une turbine. L’un des désavantages avec l’acquisition de données, c’est que celles-ci sont recueillies sur une courte période de temps car l’instrumentation est confrontée à des conditions extrêmes.

Development of a market prototype of a smart toothbrush for individuals with advance dementia

Dementia in general and Alzheimer Disease in particular are among the most challenging health conditions in our century. Experiencing cognitive decline, resulting in relying on others for daily living activities and impairment in basic mental tasks are the main symptoms. There are yet no proven treatments to slow or prevent Alzheimer’s Disease or dementia progression; thus, they eventually need full-time care. To help patients to stay at their own home longer and ease the caregiver burden, Smart Assistive Technology (SAT) products may be greatly beneficial. One of the basic activities that Alzheimer’s patients in particular need help with, are basic hygiene needs such as brushing their teeth. In this project, we will develop a market prototype of the recently designed smart toothbrush as an SAT for basic hygiene functions of dementia patients. The design includes hardware and software. The hardware includes 9-Axis (gyro, accelerometer, compass) motion sensor, temperature sensor, individually addressable red green blue (RGB) light emitting diodes (LEDs), voice module and other electrical components, while the software includes real-time monitoring of several dependent and independent tasks using a parallel algorithm to assist the users.

Optimization of an Industrial-scale Water Atomization Process to Produce High-Grade Metal Powders

Powder Metallurgy (PM) and Metal Additive Manufacturing (Metal AM) are sets of processes to produce net-shape or near-net-shape metal parts from metal powders, and so they offer material and energy saving. These processes, however, require powders of strict specifications like particle size distribution and shape. Water Atomization (WA) of a molten metal is a cost-effective approach to producing metal powders. With the advances in PM and Metal AM, water atomization also needs to be enhanced to produce higher quality powders. In this project, we investigate routes to optimize the design and operating parameters of an industrial WA process, to produce high-grade and controlled powders. The study includes computer simulations and lab-scale experiments (at the University of Toronto, ON), and plant trials (at Rio Tinto Metal Powders, QC). The expected outcome is to control the size and shape of water atomized powders; thus, to benefit Rio Tinto Metal Powders by expanding their market.

Project ABCI: Authorization, Booking and Coordination Internships for widespread Testing and Vaccination for COVID-19

Ensuring efficient and effective disease testing during a pandemic requires the integration and automation of complex, versatile assessment, scheduling, and planning tools. Project ABC, funded by Canada’s Digital Technology Supercluster, will deploy technologies that enable the BC health system to deliver a high volume of COVID-19 tests to the patients who most urgently need them, and when available, vaccination/immunization. This MITACS proposal, Project ABCI, is the companion internship package led by SFU faculty Gromala and Shaw and three interns. The interns will work on two projects: needs analyses to gather the knowledge and flexibly assess information needs and capabilities with respect to the ABC Project systems being developed; and usability testing to experimentally validate the usability and accessibility of the ABC Project systems, such as the online booking system, to ensure that these systems are accessible and responsive to citizen’s needs.

Modélisation de la consommation d’un robot-tracteur 100% électrique à conduite autonome effectuant des tâches au champ sous diverses conditions

Le projet consiste à modéliser la consommation d’un robot prototype autonome entièrement électrique. Le robot se veut un porte-outil auquel plusieurs équipements agricoles peuvent y être harnachés ce qui le rend très polyvalent. Les tâches pouvant être accomplies sont aussi variées que la cartographie des caractéristiques physiques et chimiques du sol, effectuer des semis ou faire du désherbage mécanique. Le suivi de la consommation électrique du robot en temps réel permettra de concevoir un logiciel de gestion de tâches afin de maximiser l’autonomie énergétique en fonction des tâches à effectuer. La modélisation de la consommation du robot permettra de prédire les superficies qui pourront être couvent pour le robot selon son environnement de travail et les tâches à accomplir. Les données recueillies serviront également à la conception des bornes de recharge mobiles qui seront disposées dans le champ

Interactive Visualization of Design Stories for Parametric Design Systems

This project involves the development and implementation of a visualization, analysis and exploration prototype for a parametric CAD tool. The prototype focuses on the design process; that is, the collection of actions taken by designers as they develop solutions. The visualization will allow designers to analyze, understand and make better decisions based on single actions and/or patterns across time. Designers using the prototype will be able to explore new design solutions derived from this knowledge using the visualization itself. The partner organization will benefit by having a prototype that allows designers of the built environment to view their design process, the highlights and pitfalls, and enable further exploration to find better solutions based on these insights

Navigation and Control of Drones over 5G networks: Enhanced Communication, Adaptive Control and Drone Swarm Collision Avoidance

The current generation of cellular networks, i.e., 4G, made possible multimedia applications such as music and video streaming in the palm of your hand. The upcoming generation of cellular networks, i.e., 5G, enables new types of applications beyond what 4G offered such as augmented virtual reality, Internet of Things, cloud computing, autonomous vehicles, connected health equipment and connected industrial robots. Communications with drones are expected to be one of the important applications of 5G networks. With 5G, pilots maintain communications with drones across arbitrarily large distances over the cellular network. This is a little revolution, a significant technological advancement and an enabler for drone applications that need wide geographical area coverage such as the delivery of parcels or medical supplies. The interns involved in this project are trained in this burgeoning field together with the worldwide 5G equipment leader Ericsson.

Développement d’une plateforme graphique pour illustrer les données dans l’espace et le temps afin d’identifier le cycle optimal d’entretien et dé réhabilitation des routes et de suivre la conformité de l’exécution

Le réseau routier favorise la mobilité des personnes et des marchandises, et est vital pour l’économie aussi bien à l’échelle nationale que municipale. Les villes sont confrontées à un budget limité pour maintenir les routes dans un état acceptable et le développement d’un système pour aider les municipalités à mieux administrer leurs actifs est crucial. Le projet consiste à développer une représentation graphique avec des outils de décision sur Microsoft Excel pour l’entretien, la réhabilitation et le suivi de réseau routier des municipalités. Les villes pourront saisir des données sélectives et obtenir une vue graphique de l’état du réseau routier au fil du temps. Avec ces informations, ils peuvent analyser, comparer et sélectionner la solution la plus économique pour entretenir et améliorer la qualité des routes.

The road network supports the mobility of people and goods, and is vital to the economy at both the national and municipal levels. Cities are faced with a limited budget to maintain roads in an acceptable condition and the development of a system to help municipalities better manage their assets is crucial. The project consists of developing a graphical representation with decision tools on Microsoft Excel for the maintenance, rehabilitation and monitoring of the road network of municipalities. Cities will be able to capture selective data and obtain a graphical view of the condition of the road network over time. With this information, they can analyze, compare and select the most economical solution to maintain and improve the quality of the roads.