Assorted hands and arms are starting to overtake Soo Jeon’s office – but he doesn’t mind in the least.
A professor of mechanical and mechatronics engineering at the University of Waterloo and RoboHub research affiliate, he is focused on finding a solution to a key issue in the burgeoning field of robotics.
The first few weeks after a stroke – when the brain is best able to rewire and reorganize itself to give victims a chance at recovery – are vital.
Unfortunately, while about 62,000 Canadians suffer strokes each year, of survivors with moderate to severe impairment, only 37 per cent receive rehabilitation in the weeks immediately afterwards.
Before oil prices fell from more than US$100 per barrel three years ago, jobs driving heavy-haul mining trucks in the oilsands were sought after for their six-figure salaries.
A four-part look at how robots are changing the way we work. First up, robots aren’t killing jobs, they’re creating new ones and more of them — at least at a GE Aviation plant in Quebec.
Centre for Pattern Analysis & Machine Intelligence (CPAMI) faculty member Professor William Melek will lead the RoboHub research initiative, which is funded by the Canadian Foundation for Innovation and the provincial government for a total budget of $4,600,000. CPAMI faculty members, among others in the Faculty of Engineering, will benefit greatly from this innovative facility.
With more and more robots headed for the commercial world, a Waterloo Engineering researcher hopes to speed their arrival by developing cheaper, general-purpose control systems.
At the moment, the high cost of customized robotics applications in workplaces such as warehouses and manufacturing plants largely limits them to huge companies with plenty of money to invest.
The University of Waterloo's faith in the future of robotics is best demonstrated by its plans for a new engineering building that will be home to the RoboHub. The RoboHub will be the first centre in the world to combine aerial, ground, maglev (magnetic levitation) and humanoid robotics development under a single roof.
Student experience is set to reach new heights in RoboHub, the two-story indoor flight centre for humanoid, aerial, ground and magnetically-levitated robot technologies. It’s one of the innovative features of Engineering 7 (E7), the 230,000-square-foot, seven-storey building to be funded by the $70-million Educating the Engineer of the Future campaign.
Nowhere else on the planet will you find the same advanced robotics technology under one roof. It will place Canada at the forefront of this strategically important emerging field.
Prof. William Melek, Director of Mechatronics Engineering
Over $8 million in funding from the Natural Science and Research Council of Canada's 2015 Discovery Grants program has been awarded for 55 Waterloo Engineering research projects.
The RoboHub will be a unique and revolutionary robotics test facility – a state-of-the-art showcase for humanoid, aerial, ground and maglev robot technologies. The facility will provide a vital catalyst for innovation, bridging the laboratory and the real world. Researchers will develop richly heterogeneous robot teams and simulate complex, real-world environments, opening new multidisciplinary avenues to explore the potential of these combined robotic technologies.