Over $8 million in funding from the Natural Science and Research Council (NSERC) of Canada's 2015 Discovery Grants program has been awarded for 55 Waterloo Engineering research projects.
Additionally, two engineering researchers were selected by NSERC to receive a funding boost to further their transformational research a with Discovery Accelerator Supplement (DAS) grant.
Receiving a DAS grant of $120,000 is Lin Tan, an electrical and computer engineering professor, who is generating novel program repair techniques that automatically generate fixes for real-world bugs. Also awarded a $120,000 DAS grant is Soo Jeon, a mechanical and mechatronics engineering professor, who is advancing motion control for robots.
The additional funding will support Jeon's work with new estimation and control technology to emulate the signaling capabilities of the human hand, eye and brain, to guide the precision of human touch and dexterity of a hand, for use in a robot.
By integrating advanced motion control with new sensor technologies, we can replicate the delicate movements of human arm and hand for use in a robotic form," Jeon said. "This will advance the capabilities of robots to conduct more intelligent and skillful manipulation tasks in previously unreachable environments.”
The recipients of the NSERC funding announced June 22 were among almost 200 researchers at Waterloo who have received more than $27 million to further research through programs such as Discovery grants. In scholarships and fellowships alone, over $2.7 million in financial support was awarded to 26 high-calibre engineering master’s and doctoral students for their research work.