News

The graduates of the Class of 1977 Systems Design Engineering have established an annual award to recognize a student entering the fourth year of Systems Design Engineering or Biomedical Engineering.  A combination of talents, interests and accomplishment describe the 54 unique individuals who survived the many trials and triumphs of the Systems Design Engineering Class of 1977, so the award recognizes students who have demonstrated accomplishment and creativity in (but not limited to) sports, politics, academics, work terms, philanthropy, business, the arts, and community service.

The work by Prof. Alexander Wong of Systems Design Engineering and graduate students Desmond Lin and Audrey Chung from Systems Design Engineering on building a on-device speech recognition deep learning model that outperforms state-of-the-art while achieving significantly smaller network size and lower computational cost, making them very well-suited for on-device edge voice interface applications.[Read more]

Prof. Alexander Wong of Systems Design Engineering has been named a Member of the Royal Society of Canada. He is a renowned scientist and engineer whose contributions to artificial intelligence, computer vision and biomedical engineering have had profound impacts on his field. His groundbreaking innovations include computational imaging systems and tissue-scanning techniques for cancer detection, coded hemodynamic imaging technology for blood flow monitoring, and important new concepts for operational artificial intelligence in areas such as explainable and scalable deep learning.

For many students, a term project can evoke a lot of emotions, such as excitement, worry, and enthusiasm; but for one class it provided an opportunity to reconnect with their own cultures. Last month, more than 80 students taking SYDE 361 staged a memorable concert featuring electronic instruments that they designed and built.

Waterloo Engineering is the only Canadian school to land a prestigious Amazon Alexa Fellowship program (others include CMU, MIT, Cambridge, etc.).  The program will be coordinated by Professors Alex Wong, Igor Ivkovic, and Shelley Wang in Systems Design Engineering, as Amazon Alexa Ambassadors, with exciting outreach activities to be developed for both SYDE and other engineering students, and with an Alexa innovation lab having co-op opportunities.

WATERLOO — Potholes and deteriorating roadways are the bane of motorists and a big task for municipalities to manage.

An artificial intelligence software system developed by University of Waterloo researchers can simplify road maintenance to flag defects early, saving taxpayers money and drivers headaches.

"It would make everybody's lives a lot better," said John Zelek, an engineering professor at Waterloo.

Local researchers at the University of Waterloo have developed a new artificial intelligence system to detect problems with roads.

Currently it can take up to 24 people to go through about 13,000 images a day looking for potholes. But the new research suggests computers can do majority of the work faster, and with more accuracy.

All the computer needs is images of the roads that can be taken using something as simple as a smart phone, and then their algorithm will do all the work.

Devinder Kumar, and Ph.D. student in Systems Design Engineering under the supervision of Alexander Wong, Canada Research Chair in the field of artificial intelligence, has found a better way to identify atomic structures, an essential step in improving materials selection in the aviation, construction and automotive industries. The findings of the open-access study, published in the journal Nature Communications, could result in greater confidence when determining the integrity of metals.

Alexander Wong, Canada Research Chair in the field of artificial intelligence, Chao Jin, research professor in Systems Design, and Jason Deglint, PhD student in Systems Design, along with research collaborators Prof. Monica Emelko and research associate Maria Mesquita in Civil and Environmental Engineering has developed new artificial intelligence (AI) technology could make monitoring at water treatment plants cheaper and easier and help safeguard public health.  This study has been published in Nature Scientific Reports, and mentioned in a number of media outlets.