The Waterloo Institute for Sustainable Aeronautics’ (WISA’s) Research-for-Impact (RFI) funds were awarded to University of Waterloo research teams to catalyze the research ecosystem across campus associated with aviation and aerospace sustainability. All RFI projects will be conducted in coordination with industry and/or government partners, with work spanning throughout 2023 until March 2024.
The RFI program was made possible with Government of Canada support, through the Federal Economic Development Agency for Southern Ontario (FedDev Ontario), as part of the Aerospace Regional Recovery Initiative (ARRI). More than $4 million was allocated to RFI projects, with additional funds put towards equipment associated with the Innovation Hub in partnership with the Waterloo Wellington Flight Centre and the Region of Waterloo International Airport.
Eighty-four proposals were submitted with research teams representing all six faculties at the University of Waterloo. A scientific committee of 14 academic and industry leaders adjudicated proposals and identified the projects with greatest potential for innovation and impact.
A total of 38 projects received financial support.
Total funding requested:
$11,543,822
Total funding awarded:
$4,484,887
Total proposals received:
84
Total projects funded:
38
Pillars of Research
These research projects align with one of the pillars of social, environmental, and/or economic sustainability (or the interconnections between the pillars). Sample research themes presented include:
Social Sustainability
- Assessment, development, and maintenance of physical and mental health, competency, and diversity within the aviation & aerospace workforce,
- Training innovations, skill biomarkers, proficiency, expertise, skill certification, and retention,
- Simulator technologies, e-planes, VR/AR, intelligent tutoring tools,
- Reduction of training and employment barriers faced by historically underrepresented groups.
Environmental Sustainability
- Development, assessment, and integration of green technologies, policies, and practices,
- Regional airport infrastructure needs (hydrogen and sustainable aviation fuel, solar hangar/electric plane microgrid, and regional networks of electric chargers for e-planes),
- Low carbon performance and global competitiveness of pilot training (electric planes, hydrogen propulsion, hybrid-electric, and microgrids).
Economic Sustainability
- Optimizing operations and intelligent aviation systems (e.g., cybersecurity, physics and structure modelling, aircraft system simulations, digital twin, AI/ML, modelling of propulsion, noise, de-icing systems, and biometrics for aviation security),
- Remotely piloted aircraft, ‘next-gen’ aircraft, and autonomous flight,
- Advanced manufacturing.
Projects Awarded: Distribution by PI Faculty
Faculty of Arts
2
%
Faculty of Health
7
Health
Faculty of Engineering
55
%
Faculty of Math
10
%
Faculty of Environment
15
%
Faculty of Science
7
%
Research Projects
| Project Title | Principal Investigator (PI) | Co-applicants | PI Faculty | Sustainability Pillar (Social, Environmental, Economic) |
| 3D Printing of high strength thermally stable sustainable nanocomposites for aerospace applications | Shirley Tang | - | Faculty of Science | ENV & ECON |
| A Multiobjective Simulation-Optimization Approach with Reliability Constraints for Collaborative Airport Resource Allocation of Disruption Management | Kumaraswamy Ponnambalam | Lisa Aultman-Hall | Faculty of Engineering | SOC, ENV & ECON |
| Accurate and Provably Stable Coupling for Fluid Structure Interaction Problems | David Del Rey Fernandez | - | Faculty of Math | ENV & ECON |
| Active Learning in Aviation | Evan Risko | Patrick Craven, Laura Bianchi | Faculty of Arts | SOC |
| Additive manufacturing of economically-sustainable high-strength aluminium alloys for high-performance aerospace applications | Mihaela Vlasea | - | Faculty of Engineering | ENV & ECON |
| Advanced sensor development for air recirculation in sustainable-aircraft cabins | Kevin Musselman | - | Faculty of Engineering | SOC, ENV & ECON |
| Aerospace Instrumentation through 3D Printing of Advanced Sensors on Mission-Critical Aerospace Components for Environmental Sustainability | Ehsan Toyserkani | Michael Pope | Faculty of Engineering | ENV & ECON |
| Anomaly Detection in Battery Packs of Airport Electric Vehicles Using Digital Twins | Sagar Naik | - | Faculty of Engineering | ENV & ECON |
| Anti-corrosion surface treatment of metallic bipolar plates to enable hydrogen fuel cells for electric aviation applications | Xianguo Li | XiaoYu Wu | Faculty of Engineering | ENV & ECON |
| Creating a digital twin for Sustainable Airport Facilities and Landscapes Science | Derek Robinson | Rebecca Saari, Bruce MacVicar, Peter Deadman, Robert Feick, Michelle Rutty | Faculty of Environment | SOC & ENV |
| Data platform and information technologies transforming general aviation pilot training | Shi Cao | Ewa Niechwiej-Szwedo, Elizabeth Irving, John Munoz | Faculty of Engineering | SOC |
| Data-efficient Learning of Aircraft Dynamics for Simulated Flight Testing | Vijay Ganesh | Yash Vardhan Pant, Kenneth Hui | Faculty of Engineering | ENV & ECON |
| Demonstration of environmentally sustainable Ti-alloy and scale-up binder jetting metal additive manufacturing process for fabrication of aircraft components | Mihaela Vlasea | - | Faculty of Engineering | ENV & ECON |
| Development and implementation of non-intrusive eye tracking technology in a flight simulator: Building a robust collection and analytics pipeline | Ewa Niechwiej-Szwedo | Andrew Duchowski | Faculty of Health | SOC |
| Development of a combined computer vision and machine learning system for pilot fatigue management | Ben Thompson | Otman Basir, Anoop TR, Robert Hess | Faculty of Science | SOC & ECON |
| Development of a Simulation Environment for the Assessment of Urban Air Mobility Vehicles: Energy Efficiency, Noise, and Icing | Fue-Sang Lien | Eugene Yee, David Orchard, Chun (Lucy) Li | Faculty of Engineering | ENV & ECON |
| Development of an Intercity Long-Distance Travel Origin Destination Matrix for Canada | Lisa Aultman-Hall | - | Faculty of Engineering | ENV |
| Efficient Shape Optimization of Gas Turbines for Green Aviation | Hans De Sterck | David Del Rey Fernandez, Hessame Babaee | Faculty of Math | ENV & ECON |
| Electric Planes: Optimizing Battery Operation and Designing Airport Microgrids | Claudio Canizares | Mehrdad Kazerani, Paul Parker, Mehrdad Pirnia, Bob Connors, Matt Scheben | Faculty of Engineering | ENV & ECON |
| Human Factors Evaluation of Mixed Reality Command and Control Interfaces for Fleet Operations of Unmanned Aircraft | Shi Cao | - | Faculty of Engineering | ECON |
| Immersive, Intelligent, and Personalized Pilot Training | Jian Zhao | Shi Cao | Faculty of Math | SOC |
| In-flight infrasonic detection of clear-air turbulence | Jean-Pierre Hickey | Michael Waite | Faculty of Engineering | SOC, ENV & ECON |
| Machine learning-driven integrated computational tools to support virtual certification of ultra-lightweight composite structures for next-generation zero-emission aircraft | John Montesano | Michael Worswick, Lucy Li, Frank Henning | Faculty of Engineering | ENV & ECON |
| Model supporting environmental scan and gap analysis of codes and standards related to hydrogen applications in aerospace | John Wen | Zekai Hong, Nabiha Chaumeix | Faculty of Engineering | SOC, ENV & ECON |
| Moving towards competency-based training in aviation: Investigating the utility of eye tracking in the assessment of situation awareness | Ewa Niechwiej-Szwedo | Andrew Duchowski, Elizabeth Irving, Shi Cao | Faculty of Health | SOC |
| Multi-quadcopters Coordination for Long-term Environmental Monitoring | Gennaro Notomista | Roberto Guglielmi, Derek Robinson | Faculty of Engineering | ENV & ECON |
| Novel Noise and Vibrations Insulation Solutions for Aircraft Produced by Additive Manufacturing to Improve Flight Ergonomics | Armaghan Salehian | Mihaela Vlasea, Nima Maftoon | Faculty of Engineering | SOC & ECON |
| Predicting drag degradation in-flight due to icing-related surface modifications | Jean-Pierre Hickey | Ali Benmeddour, Leonid Nichman, Keyvan Ranjbar | Faculty of Engineering | ENV & ECON |
| Provably Stable and Positivity Preserving High-Order Methods for Ice Accretion Problems | David Del Rey Fernandez | - | Faculty of Math | ENV & ECON |
| Risk assessment and mitigation strategies for using solar photovoltaic installation in aerodromes | Costa Kapsis | Derek Robinson | Faculty of Engineering | SOC & ENV |
| Route-based Market Analysis of Emission Reduction Strategies for Sustainable Aviation: AI Optimization of Sustainable Aviation Fuels Allocation, Tourism Markets, and Electrification | Daniel Scott | Mehrdad Pirnia, Juan Moreno-Cruz, Stefan Gössling, Nicole Cocolas | Faculty of Environment | SOC, ENV & ECON |
| Solar Hangars: A key component to Zero Carbon Flight Operations and Airport Microgrids | Paul Parker | Costa Kapsis, David Mather, Bob Connors | Faculty of Environment | ENV & ECON |
| Sustainability Potential in Air Cargo Markets | Clarence Woudsma | Chris Bachmann | Faculty of Environment | ENV & ECON |
| System for Motion Capture of Virtual Flight Training | Michael Barnett-Cowan | - | Faculty of Health | SOC, ENV & ECON |
| Techno-economic Assessment of Captured CO2 to Aviation Fuel | Eric Croiset | - | Faculty of Engineering | ENV |
| The Connection between Sustainability Ratings and Financial Performance in the Aviation Industry | Olaf Weber | - | Faculty of Environment | SOC, ENV & ECON |
| Transforming the Flight Training Industry to Advance International Competitive Standards and Achieve Low Carbon Performance | Peter Deadman | Mehrdad Pirnia, Bob Connors, David Mather | Faculty of Environment | SOC & ENV |
| Vision, gaze, stress and pilot performance | Elizabeth Irving | Ewa Niechwiej-Szwedo, Shi Cao | Faculty of Science | SOC |