News

Developed in Waterloo, now orbiting in space

A one-of-a-kind communications device developed by researchers at the University of Waterloo is now orbiting the Earth as a central component of a microsatellite launched in Sriharikota, India on Tuesday to test new technologies in space.

The product of several years of work and refinement, the compact, sophisticated antenna for identifying and managing marine traffic is built into a Canadian Space Agency (CSA) satellite that is about the size of a household dishwasher.

The leap from engineer to entrepreneur was a logical one for Karen Tsoi (BASc 2009, Electrical; MMSc 2014, Management of Technology), owner of Pasteldress.com, an online custom bridal party outfitting business. “Entrepreneurs, like engineers, are all about solving problems,” says Tsoi. “Every day I wake up and think about each business problem with an analytical mind, just like the engineer I am. It’s the same approach.”

X-ray technology is at the beginning of a digital revolution that will transform the Canadian health-care system by detecting diseases such as cancer and heart disease faster and more accurately than traditional X-ray machines, allowing patients to begin treatment sooner.

Some Nunavut communities could cut their fossil fuel use by up to half with renewable energy that wouldn't cost any more than the aging diesel generators they now use, a new study has concluded.

"The technical challenges have been for the most part addressed," said Claudio Canizares, one of the authors of the report that was conducted by six Inuit, academic and environmental groups and funded by the World Wildlife Fund Canada.

Read the full story here.

Vice-President, Academic & Provost Ian Orchard has announced the winners of the 2015 Outstanding Performance Award.

Effective May 1, 2005, in accordance with the 2003 Faculty Salary Settlement, the University established an Outstanding Performance Fund to reward faculty members for outstanding contribution in teaching and scholarship.

The 2015 winners from Electrical and Computer Engineering are:

A University of Waterloo team has been selected as a finalist in the 2016 IEEE Antennas and Propagation Society (IEEE AP-S) student competition out of 50 international participating teams. Team Waterloo is the only North American team among the selected six finalists competing for the best design of a wireless energy harvesting system. The final stage of the competition will be held in June at the annual IEEE AP-S meeting in the USA.

 Lan Wei, professor in electrical and computer engineering, was awarded $125,000 for her research into a versatile multi-physics device and circuit characterization and testing platform. Click here to read the full story.

Derek Wright, lecturer in ECE, is the winner of this term’s Engineering Society Teaching Award. 

Congratulations to the following 4^th Year Capstone Design Projects for their outstanding achievements:

$10,000 winner Nurhachi: a virtual energy marketplace for distributed energy (Norman Esch Entrepreneurship Award for Capstone Design)

The Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering sadly reports that retired Professor Mohamed Kamel died December 4. "He will be sorely missed by his current and former students, colleagues at the University and from around the world and by the research community at large. The passing of Dr. Kamel is a major loss to all those who have known him and to the scientific community at large."