Innovative Projects Realized

AutoMate: A physiological fatigue detection system for drowsy driving prevention

Sleeping behind the wheel is one of the leading causes of road accidents and there currently exists a lack of definite limits on fatigue. The United States of America’s National Highway Traffic Safety Administration cites that over 100,000 road accidents in 2017 can be directly attributed to drowsy driving , and when over 1 in 2 Ontarian drivers admit to driving drowsy in the last month, it’s easy to see why this can be so dangerous. In fact, going 24 hours without sleep is equal to having a blood alcohol content of 0.10 %. That’s 0.02% above the legal driving limit. Despite knowing the dangerousness of being drowsy while driving, it is difficult to define and set limits on fatigue because of large inter- and intra-driver variability. While the current technologies to this problem are unfeasible and expensive because they are complex and are only available exclusively to high-end cars. The current systems also examine driving behaviour without focusing on the driver, lacking an adaptive user-level approach. Our system, AutoMate, is a portable, low-cost, low-power, fatigue detection system, based on driver physiological signals that detects driver drowsiness and provide haptic stimulation to invoke increased alertness.

Hybrid low-Inertia Turbine Storage System (HITSS)

Hybrid low-inertia Turbine Storage System (HITSS) is a samara-inspired wind turbine accompanied by any commercial battery storage system. Inspired by the autorotating maple seeds, the HITSS wind turbine is designed to track the sudden changes of the wind speed in a similar way to maple seeds (samara seeds). The main objective of the proposed project is to develop strategies for gathering market intelligence and learn to assess the market value of HITSS through workshops offered by Lab2Market. Furthermore, the design of HITSS will be tweaked based on the feedback of the potential customers and stakeholders, and a full-size prototype will be built and tested.

A Window into the Future: Dye?Sensitized Solar Cells in Buildings

Solar cells are an incredible source of renewable energy. As with all technologies, though, they should be cheap,
easy to adopt, and smart. Dye-Sensitized Solar cells are solar cells that are not only highly effective at creating
energy from the sun but are also capable of being adopted into homes in new and unique ways. We are developing
a method of converting existing windows into solar cells. Throug this technology a window would still act as a
window, except it would also be capable of harvesting energy from the sun and powering a home.

Product Development of 65W Digital PD Adapter

USB Type-C Power Delivery (PD) is a universal fast-charging protocol for powering cell phones, tablets and laptop computers with the same power supply. It has been promoted as the next generation of charging technology by industry leading companies such as Google and Apple. This all-in-one charging solution will allow customers to carry only one charger for all their portable devices. It is anticipated that PD adapter will gain an exponentially increase of market share of the whopping 1.7 billion shipment market in the coming few years. Existing PD products are not satisfactory from the point view of size and weight, because their switching frequency is limited. The circuit and control strategy developed in this project can achieve 10 times higher switching frequency to allow significant size reduction of the adapter. As compared to the industry benchmark, the developed 65W prototype is 70% smaller than Apple’s 61W PD adapter. Besides, the proposed technology achieves higher power conversion efficiency than the best product available on market to facilitate the energy conservation goals.

MULTI-LEVEL CONCUSSION MITIGATING FOOTBALL HELMET: A NOVEL DESIGN

A novel design of football helmet to mitigate the concussion is proposed here. The jerk transferred to brain, due to the collisions between players and due to falling on the field, will be reduced, attenuated, decomposed, and directed away from reaching the brain. Multi-shell made of composite materials, along with speed-dependent padding between head and inner shell will be used. Relative motion between shells will be attained though a specially designed structure made of strong material bars. Therefore, the force of collisions will be controlled by a number of safety layers. It is, therefore, intended that highest level of safety against concussion will be achieved with cost-effective, reliable and long-life football helmet.

Monitoring System for “Flushable” Consumer Products in Urban Wastewater Collection Systems

This research project explores the application of an artificial intelligence-based monitoring system comprised of image-based sensors and processing algorithms to detect, identify, and monitor the incoming presence of wet wipes and nonwovens in urban drainage systems in near real-time to pre-empt the effects of the damages caused by users’ disposal of these products in toilets. The AI-based system, to be employed in a number of monitoring locations simultaneously, will be used to establish a library of detected materials to identify and categorize incoming products (e.g. baby wipes, paper towel).
By running the Lab2Market program and participating in Mitacs E-Accelerate, the partner organizations are driving innovation and technology development in Canada. The work conducted by each intern will inform the broader community about industry trends, the impact of different present and emerging technologies on various industries, as well as foster the growth of innovative technologies within the Canadian economy.

Development and Commercialization of Photoresponsive Red-Shifted Gene-Silencing Agents

We have a technology that can potentially inactivate a class of pharmaceuticals. Pharmaceutical side-effects can have a detrimental effect on the health and wellbeing of individuals. Pharmaceutical companies can suffer significant monetary loss when drug candidates do not pass clinical trials. Given that the pharmaceutical industry is a multibillion-dollar industry, we believe there is significant interest in utilizing a technology that can control the activity of a pharmaceutical. We will use the Lab2Market initiative to learn start-up methodologies and take a scientific approach to entrepreneurship for our start-up company, AzoSolutions. We will continue primary market research and speak with stakeholders to validate or reject our hypothesis. We anticipate scaling up our product for commercialization and will learn to contact potential clients.

Year of the Gusher Virtual Exhibit

The project to be undertaken by the intern is multifaceted. The principal part of the

project is the creation of an online interactive virtual exhibit to commemorate the 150th

anniversary of “The Year of the Gusher.” This is the designation given to the year

1862, as there were 33 free flowing wells drilled in Lambton County, many covering the

area in oil before they were brought under control. This project will organize and

interpret research conducted by previous interns. In addition, the intern will conduct

original research to incorporate into the new exhibit. This research will focus on the

independent oil refineries that operated in Oil Springs, Petrolia, Wyoming, and Sarnia

prior to Imperial Oil, as well as those that remained after Imperial opened. Finally, the

intern will continue the oral history project initiated by a previous intern.

Portable Thermo-Photonic Device for On-Site Detection and Quantification of Cannabis Consumption

With recent changes in legalization of cannabis around the world, there is an urgent need for rapid, yet sensitive, screening devices for testing drivers and employees under the influence of cannabis at roadside and workplace, respectively. Oral fluid test strips have recently been explored for such application. While these strips offer simple and non-invasive detection of tetrahydrocannabinol (THC), their detection threshold is about 25 ng/ml which is well above the 1-5 ng/ml per se limits set by regulations. We have recently developed a thermo-photonic measurement system which utilizes the commercially-available low-cost saliva strips but offers detection of THC at unprecedented low concentrations down to 2 ng/ml with 96% accuracy. In this project, we will package our low-cost, but accurate, technology into a hand held device which can be used at roadside or workplace for rapid, but reliable, detection of THC at legally relevant concentrations to enable proper enforcement of driving and workplace safety regulations.

Graduating from the Integrated Periphery: Turkey’s Attempt to Becomea “Core” Automotive Nation and Its Implications for Non-CoreAutomotive-Producing Countries like Canada

The automotive industry contributes significantly to the Canadian economy as well as to the economies of many other countries, providing substantial employment opportunities. In recent decades, the sector has gone through
significant restructuring with some countries like Canada unable to prevent declining employment and production figures. The general strategy of policymakers in Canada has been to provide incentives to firms that manufacture
or conduct R&D activities in the country, but this has not brought growth to the industry. This project aims to explore the strategies deployed by Turkey with regard to the development of a new domestic electric vehicle under the brand ‘TOGG’ and draw an lessons for the Canadian stakeholders as well as for other automotive-producing nations.

A Wide Bandgap Based Step-up Power Converter With Enhanced Self-Reconfigurability for Medium Voltage Renewable Power Network

Wind and solar photovoltaic energy are the fastest growing sources of electricity in Canada, targeting to reach 10% of Canada’s total generation by 2040. Aligned with Canada’s energy transition, this research aims at developing a novel, highly efficient, compact, and reliable power electronics interfaces for high power renewable energy resources. The use of power electronics converters is an attractive solution to significantly reduce the weight and size of the step-up voltage conversion unit in today’s high power renewable energy systems. However, the existing converters fail to maintain a stable grid voltage efficiently against a wide range of solar irradiation level or wind speed. To address this issue, a high frequency converter with four modes of operations is proposed that employs newly available high voltage wide bandgap (WBG) transistors. The structure of the proposed converter can be changed according to the atmospheric conditions by using a single switch. Hence, high efficiency for a wide range of solar irradiation level or wind speed can be obtained.

Optical device for accurate and real-time assessment of liver fat content in human subjects

A novel technology that will allow transplant surgeons to obtain accurate measurements of liver fat content during donor surgeries has been developed. These results will be immediate and will guide the transplant surgeon in deciding whether the liver is acceptable for transplantation. This will lead to fewer discarded livers, reduced waitlists for liver transplantation and improved quality of life for many individuals with end-stage liver disease. Our alpha prototype has been proved to detect fat at concentrations greater than 5%. Further research aims at reliable detection of the more clinically relevant low concentrations of fat (<5%). Our intention is to license to a local NS company, led by intern Hao Guo.