How much of the EV charging load will occur on peak given status quo conditions? And how much can different management strategies (i.e., pricing, load management, battery storage) shift the consumption from on- to off-peak?

BC Hydro and other jurisdictions have alternative rate structures to encourage off-peak charging for different customer classes. Utilities also offer smart charging programs based on different technology and reward structures. Which of these is the most cost-effective and reliable?

How accurately can we forecast EV adoption by different customer groups, and tie the location of charging to geographic areas so that the electricity distribution system can be built in time to serve growth while limiting the risk of stranded investment?

The provincial energy regulator pays close attention to how much money utilities try to invest in their system so as to limit cost increases for customers. Some amount of investment is likely needed before the growth of EVs makes it too-late for the utility investment.

What investments in cybersecurity must utilities, auto OEMs and governments make to ensure that the electrification of transportation doesn’t create systemic risk to society?

Cybersecurity is a top-of-mind issue for technology leaders. Adding a new field that can be vulnerable to cyber attacks increases the risk that cyber attacks can disrupt society’s normal functioning. What systems are most vulnerable and who should be responsible for making these investments?

How can we study and develop best practices for persistent contrails?

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change is suggesting that besides carbon emitted by aircraft, condensation trails (“contrails”) produced by the exhaust from aircraft engines have an impact on climate change by creating an often-invisible thermal blanket of cloud across the planet. Bombardier would like to study persistent aviation contrails and address the following topics:
– To get out ahead of an issue that is clearly not going away
– Differentiate ourselves from our direct competitors by addressing this non-GHG related item
– Create flight guidance
– Put Canada on the map for research on a climate impact that does not involve GHG emissions.

What safety tools are missing from the Vision Zero/Safe Systems approach, specifically around policy, vehicle design/manufacturing, etc. that fall outside of our municipal control and are either within the provincial (Ontario) and federal jurisdictions?

Background: The Vision Zero Road Safety Plan was developed through data-driven and map-based decision making, leveraging the experience of other North American cities that have adopted Vision Zero strategies and through collaboration with a number of local partners who traditionally support and undertake road safety initiatives independently. The Vision Zero Road Safety Plan identifies and addresses six emphasis areas, which were determined through collision data analysis, public engagement and Council direction. They include pedestrians, school children, older adults, cyclists, motorcyclists and aggressive driving and distraction. For each of these emphasis areas, the plan outlines existing and new safety measures that includes engineering, education, enforcement and technology programs and initiatives. How have comparable provinces/states/countries addressed some of these gaps and what is the relative impact of each of these identified tools on eliminating fatal and serious injury crashes? And what are the stakeholders that need to be at the table to advance any of these priorities?
https://www.toronto.ca/services-payments/streets-parking-transportation/road-safety/vision-zero/vision-zero-plan-overview/

How can we use nudge theory or other behavioural modification tools to shift the culture around traffic safety?

Vision Zero is a City of Toronto strategy to eliminate all traffic fatalities and severe injuries, while increasing safe, healthy, equitable mobility for all. We would like to explore how we can utilize nudge theory or other behavioural modification tools to shift the culture around traffic safety? How can we promote safe driving behaviours through non-infrastructure means, such as education, to supplement the work we’re already doing?
https://www.toronto.ca/services-payments/streets-parking-transportation/road-safety/vision-zero/vision-zero-plan-overview/

How can we reduce the health impacts related to loneliness caused by reduced mobility in aging individuals?

The negative health impacts of loneliness have come under the spotlight during the pandemic, but loneliness has been impacting the health of older adults with reduced mobility for a long time. Loneliness can lead to apathy towards life, poorer nutrition, failure to take medication, and ultimately a significant health event and the emergency room, which can alter an aging person’s life. Younger mobile people have easy access to a wide array of two way communication tools, their favorite media on demand, and other ways to prevent loneliness using technology that is easy to use, for them anyways. Hulpr is looking for research expertise to help us find entertaining and engaging solutions to reduce loneliness and motivate older adults with mobility challenges.

In developing an automated vehicle system to augment and complement the human driver, it is critical to understand what driving tasks are hardest for humans and would benefit the most from automation. How can AVs better handle hand-off’s between the vehicle to driver more effectively and safely?

In WWII, studies on radar operators showed clearly that human vigilance is inversely proportional to the time spent on the task. Currently, during autonomous vehicle testing, the hand-overs from the car to the driver is random and drivers must be prepared to take over control. Semi-autonomous systems could lull drivers into a false sense of security, leading to accidents if drivers fumble while retaking control. What are some best practices that should be implemented given the shortcomings of the current state-of-the-art technology?

Should we see it or measure it? Sensors are at the foundation of autonomous vehicle control systems. For AV’s, is it better to depend on visual sensors as humans do, or should we use laser or other technologies to compensate for distance deficiencies?

Tesla, one of the first autonomous vehicle manufacturing companies, has been ditching any laser distance measurement technologies (LiDARs) in favor for Cameras. Lately, reports have been out that they are testing LiDARs for their full autonomous navigation. The drawbacks of cameras are that the visual data is relatively hard to rely on for distance measuring, while laser is extremely accurate in doing that. On the other hand, LiDAR does not work in rain, or snow, and big data size. So, is it better to depend on visual sensory as humans do? Or should we use laser technology to compensate for the lack of accuracy in distance measurement?

How do we develop a “Community Safety and Wellbeing” policy approach and data tools to measure the impact of implemented and to facilitate interactions with traditional and nontraditional 911 responders through enhanced mobility?

Community Safety Wellbeing (CSWB) is a legislative mandate through the government policy where different health, social and public safety organizations meet and collaborate on a municipal level to determine what and who requires attention on an individual level and as a community. The Development of a “Community Safety and Wellbeing” policy would capture key performance indicators (KPI) identified by the organizations that participate in the CSWB programs within Ontario’s situation tables (where police, healthcare workers, social care workers and other services such as victim services come together to plan for preventative approaches to tackle community trends that may result in future elevation of crime or incidents). How can we utilize both policy and data tools to create and measure impact?

How can more municipalities and transit agencies be incentivized to integrate micromobility and transit services, and what process should this integration follow?

The introduction of e-Scooters and other light electric vehicles and devices has been challenging for many municipalities because existing regulatory frameworks did not consider these types of vehicles and where they fit in the mobility mix. Traditional approaches to micromobility have treated it as a separate entity from a local transit service, even though there are benefits from integrating the two (where micromobility can be a first/last-mile solution for transit).

How should municipalities find an effective balance between the usability of transportation data and the privacy of the people who are using transportation to generate the data?

Micromobility vehicles (whether shared or personal) are often connected vehicles, (with Bluetooth and/or IoT+GPS+Cellular connectivity), and many riders carry smartphones. Municipalities and private corporations thus have access to a great deal of data that can be used to determine transportation demand and support investments in infrastructure, but with that data comes questions about privacy, data ownership and data security.

How can we help Canada achieve it’s goal of Net-Zero Emission and electrification by 2050, particularly with innovations in EV charging systems?

To make the mobility revolution a reality, Siemens is working closely with energy suppliers, fleet operators, companies, cities and end customers. Siemens has launched the VersiCharge smart charging system and is looking at innovative ways to increase capacity and decrease charging time in EV charging systems.

How can OpenAI help with defining a real-time system integration toolkit?

The majority of the challenges in open ecosystems typically come in the area of integration of systems and solutions. Being able to quickly identify and fault sectionalize issues will require new tools. How can we use natural language processing of code and OpenAI to generate solutions (integration, monitoring, troubleshooting, visualizing, etc.,) and enable easier adoption for our partners.

What AI/ML approaches can be used to optimize security in 5G networks?

How can AI be used along side the latest advances in security protocols to optimize security certificate exchanges and trust stores. The goal is to reduce the footprint of generating, storing, retrieving and checking of certificates between entities. How can other new ideas be used for optimizing protocols (blockchain security, cryptokeys etc.,) and create leaner security approaches for sustainability in 5G. How can the existing protocols address accessible, inclusive learning.

How can we use OpenAI to optimize Containers as a Service (CaaS) footprint for radio access network (RAN) applications?

There are emerging constraints as technologies are being pushing out of the data center (and core of the network) to the edge, where they’ve never been deployed before. These environments constrain the solutions in cost, space, and power. Containers as a Service (CaaS) have many advantages in these solutions by using AI to drive real-time optimizations of underlying infrastructure to scale up/down based on executing RAN algorithms and applications and better spectrum utilization, intelligent beamforming, scheduler optimizations. How can AI be utilized to optimize physical, electrical, and material footprint of virtualized RAN.

For a stratospheric balloon cellular network, what is the best hardware setup and spectrum to maximize area coverage and cellular users to provide connectivity in urban and rural areas?

We are interested in understanding the options available to optimize performance of stratospheric balloon cellular networks in different contexts. For example in in urban areas optimization for the greatest number of users (throughput) may be advantageous where as for northern or rural areas optimization for distance may be preferred.

What is the best way to determine the maximum wattage generated from customizable High Altitude Platform System (HAPS) solar panel configurations that could determine available power based on lines of latitude and the position of the sun?

Stratotegic is conducting research at the edge of known technology in the field of artificial intelligence for autonomous control of a network of high-altitude platform systems (HAPS). This research can be used to support a wide range of mission purposes including communication, astronomy, and near-space R&D equipment testing. We are particularly interested in the possibility of additional software solutions to help optimize such systems.

How will C-V2X technology provide the required level of quality of service (QoS) and security to support advanced driver assistance systems (ADAS) via V2X direct communication over the sidelink (i.e. PC5 interface)?

Cellular V2X (C-V2X) communication systems support two operation modes for V2X communication, namely V2X direct communication over the sidelink, i.e. PC5 interface (vehicle-to-vehicle/infrastructure/pedestrian, V2V/V2I/V2P), and V2X communication over the Uu interface (vehicle-to-network, V2N). Particularly, V2V communication will use the PC5 interface for vehicles to broadcast safety messages to inform about potential road hazards. In order to function safely, stringent QoS requirements and robust security mechanisms are needed to ensure the reliability and the performance of safety applications.

What improvements will 6G bring in comparison to 5G and what new use cases will 6G enable?

6G (sixth-generation wireless) is the successor to 5G cellular technology and is expected to facilitate improvements in the areas of imaging, presence technology and location awareness. How can we better understand these improvements and support strategy development and implementation of connected and autonomous vehicle services and electric vehicle infrastructure solutions.

How can we best secure 5G communications as wireless based infrastructures are being adopting in IoT, sensors, and critical business processes

5G is the catalyst for a significant change in communications due to it’s inherent design to support higher capacity services as well as machine-machine and human-machine communications.
As such, many services will move from wired to wireless as the latter improves flexibility, lowers deployment costs and addresses new and emerging mobile use-cases.
In order to secure an “Open Medium” such as the Radio Frequency (RF) Spectrum, we will need to find methods to continuously monitor, detect and resolve wireless interference issues both from unintentional and nefarious sources.

What do you feel are the biggest obstacles to adoption of a shared model for Electric Vehicles in Canada?

Technology is being developed for an affordable shared electric vehicle service where individuals share Electric vehicles and charging infrastructure to save on their overall cost of mobility. Despite keen interest and promising results, this model has not been readily adopted for reasons that remain unclear.