Pilotless Planes May Hold Key to Spotting Forest Fires
Every year Ontario experiences more than 700 forest fires, affecting more than 120,000 hectares of woodland. Finding those fires and alerting fire rangers is a daunting task in a province as large as Ontario. But UTIAS Professor Hugh Liu thinks he may have a solution – UAVs – pilotless airplanes armed with thermal cameras. Professor Liu, who […]
UTIAS Student Caught Up in Boston Bombing Aftermath
When Lana Osusky (AeroE PhD candidate) went to Boston to present her research, she didn’t expect to end up presenting in her hotel room, while under lockdown. The Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s (MIT)Women in Aerospace Symposium, which took place on April 18 and 19 at the MIT campus, was an opportunity for female doctoral candidates from across […]
UTIAS Invaded by Crawling, Swimming, Flying Robots!
Robots of all shapes and sizes crawled, swam and flew at U of T’s Institute for Aerospace Studies (UTIAS) and York University recently as the NSERC Canadian Field Robotics Network (NCFRN) field trials came to town. The field trials took place from April 17–23 and featured talks and presentations, workshops, networking events, and opportunities for […]
Communitech and UTIAS: Tapping the Potential of Space
The first things you notice upon entry to the University of Toronto Institute for Aerospace Studies (UTIAS) Space Flight Laboratory are the bright flecks twinkling against the inky blackness – in the granite floors, not the sky. This is, after all, an Earth-bound facility, though its work is all about space. It is here that […]
Robots Help Celebrate the Institute for Robotics & Mechatronics
The appetizers may have been organic, but the server was mechanical at a reception held April 15 to celebrate the University of Toronto Engineering’s Institute for Robotics & Mechatronics. The reception was held to celebrate the Institute, which was established in 2010 to bring focus on research and education in the fields of robotics and […]
National Engineering Month 2013
National Engineering Month (NEM) is the biggest national celebration of engineering and technology. Across Canada, engineering schools and volunteers stage more than 500 events and activities to bring more awareness to the exciting and rewarding world of engineering. This year’s NEM theme is Design the Future – something U of T Engineering certainly knows a […]
No Robots? No Problem!
When UTIAS Professor Reza Emami began teaching a new AER525 Robotics course recently, he had a problem: No robots. At first, Emami and his students had to make do with rudimentary simulations. Eventually he managed to procure a few tabletop robots. However, these were too simple to allow him to demonstrate all aspects of industrial robotics. But […]
UTIAS Shines BRITE With World’s Smallest Space Telescopes
A pair of space telescope satellites, designed by U of T Engineering’s Space Flight Laboratory (SFL), are now circling the Earth, prepared to find and study the brightest stars in the sky. Measuring only 20 centimetres a side, and weighing less than seven kilograms, the nano-satellites are the smallest astronomical satellites ever built. They were […]
UTIAS Graduate Talks Women in Engineering to ‘TEDxYouth@Toronto’
Women need to embrace curiosity and risk taking if they want to excel in science and engineering, says U of T Engineering alumna Natalie Panek (AeroE MASc 0T9). Panek, a systems engineer at MDA Space Missions, emphasized her desire to see more young women become scientists and engineers in a recent TEDxYouth@Toronto talk. “For me, […]
