Innovative Projects Realized

CONCEPTION ET FABRICATION D’UN BANC D’ESSAI POUR UN RÉCOLTEUR D’ÉNERGIE PROVENANT DU ROTOR D’UN HÉLICOPTÈRE

La récolte d’énergie (“energy harvesting” ou “energy scavenging”) a connu une croissance importante au cours des dernières années. C’est le processus de récupération de l’énergie (voir Figure 1) des sources externes (solaire, thermique, éolienne, acoustique, mécanique/cinétique, etc.) et de conversion en électricité utile à petite échelle. Dans l’industrie aéronautique en particulier, la conversion d’énergie vibratoire en énergie immédiatement utilisable ou stockable pour alimenter des capteurs, des microprocesseurs ou encore des micro-systèmes électromécaniques (MEMS) peut être une voie intéressante vers l’optimisation énergétique. La récupération d’énergie vibratoire serait encore plus profitable notamment pour les engins volants du futur qui seront, pour la plupart, propulsés par des moteurs électriques. L’objectif de ce projet de recherche est donc de concevoir et de fabriquer un banc d’essai de récolte d’énergie vibratoire résiduelle provenant du système de transmission principal d’un hélicoptère. Une approche globale combinant des analyses numériques et des essais expérimentaux sera utilisée pour évaluer la faisabilité, l’applicabilité et la robustesse des solutions proposées. Ce projet de recherche sera réalisé au Laboratoire d’Analyse Vibratoire et Acoustique (LAVA) du département de génie mécanique de l’École Polytechnique de Montréal, en collaboration avec Bell Textron Canada Ltd.

Mots clés : récolteurs d’énergie, conversion d’énergie, efficacité, vibration

CONCEPTION ET FABRICATION D’UN BANC D’ESSAI POUR UN RÉCOLTEUR D’ÉNERGIE PROVENANT DU ROTOR D’UN HÉLICOPTÈRE

La récolte d’énergie (“energy harvesting” ou “energy scavenging”) a connu une croissance importante au cours des dernières années. C’est le processus de récupération de l’énergie (voir Figure 1) des sources externes (solaire, thermique, éolienne, acoustique, mécanique/cinétique, etc.) et de conversion en électricité utile à petite échelle. Dans l’industrie aéronautique en particulier, la conversion d’énergie vibratoire en énergie immédiatement utilisable ou stockable pour alimenter des capteurs, des microprocesseurs ou encore des micro-systèmes électromécaniques (MEMS) peut être une voie intéressante vers l’optimisation énergétique. La récupération d’énergie vibratoire serait encore plus profitable notamment pour les engins volants du futur qui seront, pour la plupart, propulsés par des moteurs électriques. L’objectif de ce projet de recherche est donc de concevoir et de fabriquer un banc d’essai de récolte d’énergie vibratoire résiduelle provenant du système de transmission principal d’un hélicoptère. Une approche globale combinant des analyses numériques et des essais expérimentaux sera utilisée pour évaluer la faisabilité, l’applicabilité et la robustesse des solutions proposées. Ce projet de recherche sera réalisé au Laboratoire d’Analyse Vibratoire et Acoustique (LAVA) du département de génie mécanique de l’École Polytechnique de Montréal, en collaboration avec Bell Textron Canada Ltd.

Mots clés : récolteurs d’énergie, conversion d’énergie, efficacité, vibration

Improving Health Information System Safety: Development of Novel Approaches for Identifying, Tracking and Preventing Technology-Induced Error

In Canada healthcare is being modernized and transformed through a range of new healthcare
information technologies and systems. Applications of information systems such as electronic health
records (EHRs), electronic medical decision support and an increasing range of mobile health
applications promise to transform and improve healthcare and increase patient safety. However,
although such technology has huge potential benefits, research has shown that if not designed, tested
and implemented properly such technology also has the potential to introduce new types of error – i.e.
technology-induced error that arises during the complex interaction of health information systems with
healthcare workers under the varied complex situations and environments in which healthcare IT is
deployed. In this proposal AE Informatics will be able to extend its pioneering research in this area in
developing new and novel methods for detecting, classifying and mitigating technology-induced error in
healthcare IT. The cluster of projects include work in improving the safety of key healthcare processes
for ensuring medication safety…TOBECONT’D…

Inputs and outputs of inhibitory reticulospinal cells in lampreys

Locomotion is a basic act that humans and animals use in everyday life to move in the environment. There has been an ongoing effort for at least a century to understand the mechanisms that the brain uses to control locomotion, including starting and stopping. Studying those mechanisms at the level of single neurons, and finding how their participate in locomotion is a difficult task, especially in humans and mammals, mostly because of the large number of neurons involved and the very complex networks that they form. This is why researchers have always looked for simpler animal models that can still provide insights as to how locomotion works in humans. One such model is an aquatic vertebrate that swims with simple ondulatory movements, the lamprey. This peculiar fish has a very simple brain with neurons and general structures that are very similar to what is found in humans. Previous studies on lampreys have shown that some cells that participate in controlling locomotion are inhibitory in nature but their role hasn’t yet been defined. A possible role of these cells would be to send an inhibitory signal to the spinal cord that would help stop ongoing locomotion.

Extended Cloud Computing and Applications September 2012-April2014

This MITACS Accelerate program will support a internships for graduate students in the areas of
services and applications using next generation communications, Internet, and cloud computing. The
interns will be placed in Canadian telecom and networking providers and vendors and will undertake
research projects defined jointly with these partners. The program will prepare graduates to work and
industry and will foster collaboration between universities and industry. The program will strengthen
the Canadian industrial base in information and communications technology through the preparation of
highly qualified manpower with expertise in the design and operation of globally competitive ICT
infrastructure and the creation of innovative and disruptive products, services, and applications.

Understanding 3D Spatial-Data from Health, Trade and Customer Service VR Training Simulator

The proposed research is a collaboration between Virtro and SFU’s iVizLab to collaboratively work on ways to understand the processes involved in analyzing and visualizing 3D spatial data. iVizLab’s research focuses on AI based computational models, in this case a data visualization tool that help users analyze 3D spatial data. In creating this user interface, the iVizLab will help teachers find insights and make sense of the errors their students do in a VR training simulator to provide personalized feedback to each student. The intern will be working closely with the partner organization to work on understanding the needs of the analyst and to translate them into an easy to use system. Further, the intern will be working on ways to apply machine-learning methods that help simplify the process of analyzing complex data.

Vers l’élaboration d’une plateforme collaborative de création et de partage de connaissances dans un contexte de crise sanitaire (ex. pandémie) et environnementale (ex. catastrophes naturelles) en services préhospitaliers et hospitaliers.

Notre intention est de réaliser les travaux préalables à l’élaboration d’une plateforme collaborative de création de partage et la mise en application des nouvelles connaissances générées dans un contexte de crise sanitaire et/ou environnementale mettant l’accent sur les services préhospitaliers. Ces travaux sont à la fois théoriques en répertoriant les connaissances actuelles sur l’utilisation des applications d’écriture collaborative dans un contexte de crise. Ils sont également empiriques en analysant les stratégies actuelles de transmission des connaissances cliniques et administratives dans un tel contexte et en établissant les besoins et les attentes permettant la co-construction de ladite plateforme. Le projet apportera des avantages économiques significatifs pour Dessercom en termes de productivité et de performance en participant à la conception des directives beaucoup mieux adaptées à la réalité terrain à l’intérieur de laquelle les paramédics se doivent intervenir et en évitant les transferts inutiles des usagers d’un territoire à l’autre.

Maternal Augmentation and Digital Empowerment Initiative in Tanzania (MADE-IT)

Shortages of skilled healthcare professionals and unequal distribution of healthcare professionals throughout the country are two key challenges causing unexpectedly high number of preventable maternal deaths in Tanzania. Hence, developing innovative solutions that take fewer resources but have a wider impact on Tanzanian midwifery education system is crucial to avert these deaths. Canadian Network for International Surgery (CNIS), with 25 years of midwifery teaching skills in Africa has developed a project called “Maternal Augmentation Digital Empowerment Initiative in Tanzania”- the main goal of the project is to examine the effectiveness of digital midwifery education compared to the traditional classroom based education in developing skilled nurses and midwives. If equally effective, the digital approach would be superior in that it is substantially less resource-demanding to teach a greater number of students; in addition, if demonstrated successful in Tanzania, this approach can be widely scaled in other countries with a similar context.

Self-Sustainable Wireless Sensors and Base-Stations Powered by Leaky-Energy Recycling and Harvesting from High Voltage Power Lines

The increasing complexity of large power distribution networks (PDN) has suggested that real-time monitoring systems (CMS) become crucial for both daily operation and emerging research. Future smart grids are expected to be assisted by but also operate for a vast number of sensor and actuator nodes. Such sensor/actuator nodes will demand a more consistent and reliable power supply in order to perform operation-monitoring tasks as well as collaborative edge computing and wireless communication functions such as 5G or even smart in-situ autonomous repairs of the power grids. Considering that the leaky electromagnetic (EM) fields from high-voltage power transmission lines (PTL) are an abundant source of energy, the harvesting of this otherwise unused energy presents itself as a strong candidate for an alternative powering for self-sustainable wireless sensor networks (WSN) and communication devices.

Validation of Giatec Corrosion Detection Device on a Full-Scale Reinforced Concrete Bridge Deck

The project is designed to verify the performance of Giatec iCORTM hand-held device for non-destructive assessment of deteriorations in concrete structures caused by corrosion. Various laboratory experiments will be conducted using iCORTM at the University of Ottawa on a corroded concrete testing slab. The results will be validates against those obtained by accurate corrosion assessment methods which are destructive, time-consuming and expensive. The successful completion of this project with result in the final development of an accurate non-destructive device for corrosion assessment of concrete structures such as bridges, pipelines, and parking garages. This will position Giatec as a leading-edge company in area of advanced concrete testing technologies in the world.

Route planning and optimization of metal waste collection and transport

The growing amounts of metal waste being transported and recycled is a challenging problem. This research project aims to build efficient daily vehicle routes of the reverse logistics problem and collecting metal waste form different points in order to minimize total costs under multiple operational constraints. The reverse logistics vehicle routing problem which combines a pick-up problem with additional constraints such as loading pick-up sequences, time-windows, multi-trips, heterogeneous internal fleet, and the classical vehicle routing problem (VRP). An efficient heuristic will be developed to construct routes and assign the supply sources to truck routes to solve large and real-size instances in a reasonable amount of time.

Setup for Success: Improving pathways for talent retention

There is a perceived talent supply and demand gap in Nova Scotia’s ICT and digital tech sector and recruitment is at top of mind for employers. Hiring new employees can be time consuming and costly, however a well-planned onboarding program can increase the proficiency of a new hire and increase retention rates. The objective of the proposed research is to (1) examine best practices for employee onboarding and (2) investigate current practices within the tech sector. To answer these questions, we will conduct a literature review and deploy an industry-wide survey. Results from this research will be used to inform an online tool that can be leveraged by companies to develop or strengthen their own onboarding program and increase the retention rates of talent within the province’s tech sector.