Innovative Projects Realized

A study of free surface electrospinning to enhance and optimize the nanofibre production process

Free Surface Electrospinning (FSE) is a novel process capable of producing non-woven webs of continuous nanofibres with controlled morphology and size from polymer solutions with the application of high electric fields. This novel scheme which was based on a rotating cylinder-solution feeding system is capable of producing nanofibres at a reasonable rate with compared to the conventional capillary schemes. We propose to further investigate and optimize the scheme for the use of wide range of applications in industry. FSE experimental setups will be developed based on a rotating cylinder-solution feeding system and rotating disc-solution feeding system. The scheme will be investigated by varying the processing conditions and different polymer solutions including bio-polymers. The experimental results will be used to modify the scheme to further enhance the performance of the free surface electrospinning schemes. A mathematical model will be used to optimize the scheme for an efficient operation. The results obtained in this study will allow GABAE development to better understand the free surface electrospinning process and employ the technique for novel product developments.

Integration of microwave technology to microfluidic systems for high throughput combinatorial tests and lab-on-a-chip applications

The high throughput combinatorial testing for pharmaceutical applications requires fast methods for manipulating droplets in microfluidic systems. In this project, a microwave platform will be designed and employed for fast droplet heating, identification and detection. The use of extremely confined microwave energy makes heating, detecting, and identifying droplets possible. With the new platform it will be possible to control the temperature of each droplet separately. In addition, since microwaves heat water much more that other materials present in a typical microfluidic system, such as oil and polydimethylsiloxane, microwave heating can heat droplets much faster compared to resistive heating, which is the most common technique used in microfluidic systems. In addition to the heating applications, microwave non-invasive detection techniques will be employed for droplet detection and identification of the droplet contents.

Constraint Programming applied to the Aerospace Industry

The goal of this project is to apply constraint programming to planning and scheduling problems that arise in the aerospace industry. Constraint programming is a successful methodology for solving complex combinatorial problems. The aerospace industry offers many opportunities to apply state-of-the-art constraint programming techniques in order to optimize complex scheduling and resource allocation problems, avionics scheduling, and space mission planning.

The novelty in this proposal is three fold. First, we intend to model problems successfully as constraint programs. Recently, emphasis in the constraint programming community has been placed on when and how constraint programming can be used to solve real-world problems. Next, we will develop novel search algorithms to solve the modeled problem. Finally, we will develop new constraint propagation techniques. Through these innovations, we hope to find solutions that will be useful to the industrial partner.

Design of co-channel interference mitigation techniques through a novel radio over cable (RoC) architecture proposed for enhanced indoor performance of femtocell networks

Wireless communication devices have become an essential part of our lives and new ubiquitous applications are evolving rapidly. The spectrum of wireless links is limited and its efficient utilization via smart technology is very crucial to fulfill the ever increasing demand. Femtocell using a low-power home base station is a promising technique for serving indoor quasi-immobile users. It has the potential to provide better coverage and increased data rate to indoor users and to support more users/services by offloading the major traffic from the macrocell to the underlay femtocells. Due to reuse of the same spectrum in both tiers, mitigating interference is an extremely important challenge to make femtocell’s promise a reality. We seek to investigate a novel radio over cable (RoC) network architecture to cope with this vital challenge in the proposed research, which benefits Ontario’s telecommunications sectors by efficient use of limited spectrum resources to upgrade networks capacity.

Social network approach to determining privileged information in legal discovery situations

In the discovery phase of a legal action, the records of both litigants are searched for documents responsive (or relevant) to the litigation at hand and, if they are not deemed privileged as a communication providing legal advice, shared with the opposing counsel.

This is also one of the largest expense of a legal action as all of the documents must be searched and vetted for both privilege and relevance in what is often millions of documents. In this research, we build on existing approaches to e-discovery by applying the tools of social network analysis (SNA) to the problem to improve the performance of (1) responsive and (2) privilege classification engines. The industrial partner will benefit from a novel approach to solving what are two core problems of their industry and by exploring the possibility of a future social network based document analysis system.

Development and Implementation of Technology for Haptics-Enabled Image-Guided Operation of the Amadeus® Robotic Surgical System

Robot-assisted minimally invasive surgery is an emerging field in research and industry. A major challenge with the existing medical robotic systems (including the da Vinci® from Intuitive Surgical) is the lack of haptic feedback (sense of touch). On the other hand, medical imaging is only used for direct visualization in the existing systems. Certain surgical sub-tasks (such as simple cuts, cleaning and suction, etc.) can be automated using imaging feedback and visual serving to assist surgeons during the operation. The proposed project will focus on (a) design and development of a force sensing mechanism and haptic feedback to give the surgeon a sense of touch; (b) efficient use of imaging feedback in the control loop for partial automation of certain surgical sub-tasks which are less critical but may be tedious; and (c) development of master-slave teleoperation in the presence of communication delays. The goal is to implement and test these on the Amadeus® Robotic Surgical System developed by Titan Medical Inc.

A Self-Balancing Omni-Delta Robot

In this project, a modified Delta parallel robot is designed in which the number of passive joints is reduced, and an active joint is added to the hardware. To the best of our knowledge, this configuration seems to be the first of its kind.

In this project, kinematic and dynamic analyses will be performed. Active compliance control and collision anticipation algorithms will also be developed for this new design. This configuration will be used as the “waist” of an omni-directional, self-balancing service robot. Methodology and novelty of approach and/or application

This new Delta robot design along with an omni-wheel mobile robot composes an omni-platform service and human interaction robot. The proposed system would serve as a personal service robot that can assist people in their daily living activities and health care issues.

This configuration could also be considered as a self-balancing robot. In this concept, the center of mass of the robot is changed based on the estimated/predicted disturbance applied to the system. So, the robot reacts such that it reduces the effect of disturbance.

Development of a real-time analytical tool for predicting the tissue fate in ischemic stroke

Thrombolytic therapy is the mainstay of stroke treatment. However, this treatment can be potentially harmful. A patient-specific model of expected outcome would greatly facilitate the treatment decision making process both for clinicians and patients. We propose to develop a clinical tool by incorporating the imaging and clinical dataset to predict the fate of tissue in ischemic stroke. We expect the product to enable real-time quantification of expected tissue outcomes using patient- and tissue- specific thresholds. This interdisciplinary project integrates Biomedical Engineering, Radiology and Neurology in developing an advanced health clinical tool, to guide the decision-making process in stroke treatment. Intellectual property and products developed will be transferred to the clinical partners at the Sunnybrook hospital.

Fabrication of the 3rd generation photovoltaics using TiO2 nanotubes and quantum dots

Due to depleting oil supplies and the global climate change we are compelled to seek alternative sources to supply our growing energy demand. Among green energy technologies, utilizing solar energy is the only way to address that problem, and tapping into this vast quantity of energy represents a grand challenge of scientific research and engineering. Current silicon technologies have thus far experienced limited deployment, primarily due to material costs. Developing novel methods of capturing solar energy is required. Here, semiconductor based 3^rd generation photovoltaic could double the solar cell efficiency.

The proposal describes the application of TiO₂ nanotubes and quantum dots in a novel photovoltaic device structure. The experimental works will include electroplating titanium on the surface of conductive glass using ionic liquid as an electrolyte, fabrication of TiO₂ nanotubes, and deposition of quantum dots onto the TiO₂ nanotube surface to generate so called 3^rd generation photovoltaics.

Development and validation of a mathematical model of brain activity during deep brain stimulation in Parkinson’s disease

Deep brain stimulation (DBS) consists in implanting electrodes delivering electric stimuli in deep brain structures to relieve motor symptoms of Parkinson's disease (PD). Even if DBS is successful in alleviating symptoms for about 50,000 patients worldwide, it is an invasive neurosurgical technique, and its mechanisms of action remain elusive. This therapy could be greatly improved by targeting the cortex, also impacted by DBS. However, a pre-requisite is to understand how cortical activity is impacted by DBS. To this end, a large-scale mathematical model of brain activity will be developed and used to predict electroencephalogram (EEG) and blood oxygen level dependent (BOLD, measured by functional magnetic resonance imaging, fMRI) signals of PD patients when DBS is turned "on/off". This model will be validated using EEG and fMRI data obtained in PD patients. This work has potential for software and hardware developments for Multi Magnetics Inc., private sector partner on this project.

Research and Development of Automated Pluripotent Stem Cell Propagation

Stem cells are at the forefront of modern medicine and are expected to revolutionize both the human and veterinary healthcare industries. Currently, a major obstacle to the field is the time-consuming and costly technical time spent growing and maintaining various stem cell populations. The degree of contamination with non-stem cells, ability of the stem cells to thrive and grow, and quality of the stem cells depends largely on the skill of the technician. Providing a cost efficient and completely reproducible approach to the mass production of research and therapeutically bound stem cells ultimately requires mechanization and automation of the processes. The proposed research would seek to collaborate with industry to develop a fully automated apparatus capable of maintaining and propagating pluripotent stem cells in vitro. The proposed apparatus would be of great interest to both academic research, focused on pluripotent stem cells, and to industrial applications of the technology to the healthcare field.

Coil and Sequence Development for Metabolic Magnetic Resonance Imaging

Dynamic Nuclear Polarisation makes it possible to boost the MRI signal of ¹³C labelled pyruvate 10,000-fold, overcoming the low natural signal of carbon. This makes imaging of metabolic processes possible, and could provide useful insight on changes in cellular metabolism due to cancer. Imaging the metabolic products of pyruvate allows monitoring not only where metabolism is taking place, but also the metabolic process itself.  The limited duration of the hyperpolarized state necessitates rapid imaging techniques, including a technique known as parallel MRI.  In order to take advantage of this technique, new coil arrays are required, and will be developed with the expertise available at XLR Resonance. This will make it possible for the first time to produce high resolution images of how relative metabolite concentrations are changing as a function of time, and position XLR Resonance at the forefront of this emerging field. Previously inaccessible avenues for non-invasive assessment of cancer metabolism will be opened up by development of this new technology.