A team of researchers from the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering (ECE) has earned third place at the 2026 IEEE Antennas and Propagation Society (AP-S) Industry Application Pitch Competition, an international competition recognizing research with strong real-world commercialization potential.
The team—PhD student Yu Cao, post-doctoral fellow Omid Bagheri, and MASc student Veronica Leong, supervised by Dr. George Shaker, Adjunct Professor in ECE—received the award after presenting their research to a panel of industry leaders during the 2026 IEEE AP-S/URSI Symposium.
Earlier this year, the team's paper, Near-Field Millimeter-Wave Radar Sensing of a Slot-Loaded Dielectric Resonator, was selected as one of the top 10 submissions from 106 entries worldwide, advancing them to the inaugural Industry Application Pitch Competition.
Their research introduces a novel wireless sensing platform that uses compact 60-GHz millimeter-wave radar to detect subtle changes in hydrogels—water-absorbing materials commonly used in biomedical technologies, wearable sensors, and smart materials—without requiring direct electrical contact.
The platform combines millimeter-wave radar with a specially designed passive resonator that concentrates the electric field around a small hydrogel sample. As the hydrogel absorbs or releases water, its electrical properties change, causing measurable shifts in the resonator's response that can be detected wirelessly by the radar system.
This contact-free sensing approach has the potential to overcome many limitations of conventional chemical and biological sensing methods, which often require wires, probes, bulky laboratory equipment, or repeated manual sampling. The technology could eventually enable applications such as hydrogel-based biosensors, hydration monitoring, pH sensing, smart wound dressings, wearable sensing systems, and compact lab-on-chip devices.
The Industry Application Pitch Competition was created to showcase technologies with clear commercial promise, challenging researchers to demonstrate not only the scientific merit of their work but also its potential impact in real-world markets. The Waterloo team's third-place finish proves the strength of their research and its potential to translate into practical sensing solutions across healthcare, environmental monitoring, and industrial applications.
Congratulations!