Innovative Projects Realized

Towards a circular end-to-end process for fully 3D printed footwear – assessment of additive manufacturing processes, material selection and mechanical characterization

The fashion industry has recently shifted toward better environmental practices but focus has been on apparel because shoes are complex products. ARSHAE, located in Montréal, proposes an end-to-end solution that accounts for the entire life cycle of shoes by building a closed loop system that enables zero waste. ARSHAE focuses on using ecological materials in hyper-localized mini factories powered by 3D printing.
3D printing is a highly interesting and disruptive solution presenting unlimited potential for the footwear industry. Moreover, it has a potential to drastically reduce the time to market and deliver personalized shoes on demand considering customer preferences and needs to unpreceded level. However, developments are still in its infancy and a fully 3D printed shoe is challenging to achieve. Sofar, only few components of a shoe are 3D printed by some by large global footwear companies.
Building on solid fashion design expertise and a comprehensive and solid review already performed by ARSHAE, the company needs support on specific engineering expertise. This project aims to address this problematic by determining and optimizing the choice of materials, the 3D printing process, and the design of the parts to be printed enabling fully 3D printing footwear at economical viable costs.

Measuring up? Assessing approaches used to measure the effectiveness of protected areas at conserving biodiversity

The world is currently facing a biodiversity crisis driven by the loss and degradation of habitat resulting from the conversion of natural areas to agricultural land and urban development. To combat this biodiversity crisis, the government committed to Convention of Biological Diversity and national targets of protecting at least 17% of terrestrial land through network of protected areas. The goal of protected areas is to ensure that biodiversity is conserved, however, whether protected areas are effective at conserving biodiversity is debated. Part of this discrepancy may result from how effectiveness is defined and measured, and if the approaches used are appropriate. Working with the Nature Conservancy of Canada, our goal is to conduct an inventory of whether steps are being taken to monitor or measure the effectiveness of protected areas, preform a comprehensive review of the monitoring or measuring approaches used, and perform a critical assessment of these approaches to determine best practices.

Development of robust and innovative designs for pet products aiming at positively affecting pet behavior

In most cases, the overwhelming reason behind pet abandonment is because of behavioral problems. Often, these behavioral problems are common issues that could be corrected if owners were to better understand their pets. Beonebreed, a young Canadian company active in the pet products’ market, proposes the development of two products aiming at the resolution of this problem. The desensitizer will be a unique product on the market, an interconnected product that will partly imitate the methods of a pet behaviorist by rewarding the animal when a positive event happens. This device will be connected with an intelligent toy, an interesting and long-lasting device that aims at diverting the pet’s attention from reprehensible behavior. This project will provide the young company Beonebreed with innovative mechanical designs for the specific application of their new product.

Integrity and Analytics of Energy Market Data

ReWatt Power facilitates transactions of green energy derivatives/green attributes such as Alberta Carbon Offsets. The company uses a blockchain technology to manage all transactions on their platform. This way, all parties have access to the transaction history in a database they own, and the transactions are immutable. The first objective of this project is to ensure that source energy measurements are accurate before the resulting green attributes are permanently recorded. The second objective is to support customers in making decision on which energy derivative/green attribute should be used to maximize the monetary value of available measurements. This is a challenging prediction task that depends on attribute type, jurisdiction/geographical area, and time.

3D Reconstruction of sub-sea assets using Simultaneous Localization and Mapping (SLAM)

In this project our goal is to facilitate the 3D reconstruction of assets that are found in the ocean bed for the purpose of monitoring the state of the asset, especially to assess whether there is corrosion or cracks in the equipment. Through the use of high-quality subsea imaging, we can obtain images of assets that can be visually inspected for corrosion and cracks. A 3D reconstruction of the asset would be a valuable tool to communicate the location of the detected regions of interest, as the 3D model can be tagged with positional markers that indicate the exact location of the damaged regions. In this project, we will produce a prototype of such a 3D reconstruction system. The partner organization will benefit from the system in that it will allow them to accelerate the discovery and documentation of the places where the assets exhibit corrosion or cracks.

Business Development Intern

Compass offers a wide range of decision support services, analysis, and innovative tools to help people, government, and industry make informed decisions. We help groups balance technical, social, environmental, and financial objectives to make sure things that matter most are evaluated correctly and fairly. Much of our work relies on face-to-face interaction which has been greatly impacted by COVID-19. We have transitioned much of our business to be conducted online which has proved challenging, but ultimately effective. Despite the changing business environment, our team has remained focused on developing software that assists our clients with significant decisions that will impact the future of their business and their stakeholders.

The addition of an intern will help to offer a new perspective when developing our business plan for the commercialization of our software. With recent teachings and knowledge of the technology market and industry players, the intern will help
our team to effectively research, develop, and implement our business plan in the coming months. The work completed will help us define our strategy and roadmap forward into commercializing software. Our long-term strategic goal is to open new revenue stream that can will help grow and modernize our business

Post COVID-19 Operational Transformation and Strategic Data Analysis

With the onset of COVID-19, the commercial real estate industry has been greatly impacted as fewer individuals and businesses are using office spaces. As such, with growing uncertainty, it is imperative to adapt, develop, and strategically plan for the foreseeable future. This project serves two purposes: 1) Assist in operational transformation using cloud-based technology and 2) Analyze present, historical, and market data to create effective actionable strategies. Through this project, historical data will be mapped to a cloud-based customer relationship management system to make the business operational process significantly more efficient, productive, and accurate. In addition, industry trends, ancillary services, online ad listing performance, turnaround time, and various other variables will be assessed to determine how to create greater value for clients while maintaining a sustainable practice. In this day and age, organizing, analyzing, and understanding data is a necessity and will serve as a key to driving change and propelling businesses forward.

Implementing a Conditional Elasticity of Variance Generalized Autoregressive Conditional Heteroskedastic Model with Foreign Exchange Data

This particular version of a volatility model was shown to be effective using past deutschemark
against dolier data. Since the introduction of the common euro currency and the recent turmoil to
afflict financial markets it is scientifically Interesting and Socially !mportant to determIne if this model
can be calibrated to provide an accurate fit to the volatilities of current and recent past foreign
exchange data. If we can demonstrate accuracy in modeling volatility with one variable like a single
currency pair. the value and benefit to the partner organization would come from extending the model
to cover multiple variabies. like interest rates as well as exchange rates This new development is
commercially significant since banks. and financial institutions around the world are under pressure to
accurately model foreign exchange and Interest rate dynamiCS in an ever increas;ngly globallzed
economy

Développement d’une méthodologie pour évaluer et valider lenouveau concept du KneeKG

Le KneeKG est une technologie développée par des chercheurs de l’école de technologie supérieure, du Centre de recherche du CHUM et la Teluq, commercialisé par la compagnie Emovi, qui permet la mesure précise du mouvement du genou à la marche sur tapis roulant. Un peu comme l’électrocardiogramme, elle fournit des informations sur les déficiences mécaniques d’un patient à la marche. La technologie consiste en un système d’attache qui vient se clamper sur le genou et sur lequel sont fixés des capteurs de mouvement. Le design du système d’attache a été revu récemment afin de le rendre plus facile d’utilisation et plus confortable. Le présent projet vise à contribuer à la validation de ce nouveau design.

Adventure Tourism in the TOTA Region: A COVID-19 Recovery Strategy

Adventure tourism is an important industry to the strategic development of the Thompson Okanagan Tourism Region in the BC Interior. Many communities are transitioning from resource extraction industries to adventure tourism. Adventure tourism is often chosen due to its ability to provide socio-cultural, environmental and economic benefits. This research will explore how resilient tourism development strategies are supporting small to medium sized adventure tourism operators in the Thompson Okanagan and their ability to sustain rural and Indigenous livelihoods. This research will use participatory action research, with in-depth, semi-structured interviews to create an inventory of vulnerabilities from key tourism stakeholders in order to determine a robust recovery strategy from the COVID-19 pandemic that adventure tourism operators can use to enhance resiliency. In addition, this research will assist Symphony Tourism Services in their plan to supporting small to medium sized tourism operators, business development agencies, and tourism marketing organizations, in order to determine how vulnerable the adventure tourism industry is in the Thompson Okanagan Tourism Region.

Investigating Machine-Learning-Based Mocap Data Augmentation for Live Performance

This project is a collaboration between researchers from the Simon Fraser University and industry partners, Lifelike & Believable Animation Design and Animatrik Film Design. Its goal is to research and develop machine learning techniques for capturing and analyzing movement data in real-time to support the world’s first immersive in-game 3D simulcast of a live, real-time motion-capture circus performance, featuring death-defying physical performances and stunning, cinematic quality visuals.

Assessing Alternative Options and Refinement of Biomass Combustion Systemsfor Energy Cost Reduction in Greenhouse Industries

AMCO requires improvements to the alternate energy systems that cannot be supported by

operating profits alone. This project is essential to ensure the company remains viable and that

the company does not shut down the Biomass Plant and absorb such debt in its current

operations. The project will increase the amount of green energy production thereby reducing

the consumption of fossil fuels and proactively reducing CO2 disbursed into the atmosphere.

However a number of technical hurdles associated with the conversion and management of

biomass and other low grade fuels are the major issues that inhabit their use as potential fuels.

The intern with the support from all the partners will work on these issues. MITACS’s support

will help with timeliness of the project, assist us to get and maintain the best available technical

resources for crucial technology know-how and transfer to AMCO.