Two Queen’s University researchers have been awarded Strategic Partnership Grants from the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC) for their work in improving optical fibre networks and road safety.

Hossam Hassanein (School of Computing) received $522,500 over three years for his iDriveSense project – a system that integrates sensors already available in vehicles and drivers’ smartphones to provide information about the vehicle’s location and dynamics.

John Cartledge (Electrical and Computer Engineering) accepted $433,560 over three years for his research in improving optical networks.

“The support of NSERC is vital to the university,” says Daniel Woolf, Principal and Vice-Chancellor of Queen’s University. “Our success in this competition reflects Queen’s reputation for innovative and leading-edge research in information and communication technologies.”

iDriveSense has the potential to reduce traffic accidents and congestion by using real-time information on road conditions, hazards and congestion to help direct traffic.  The information could also help personal navigation systems improve route suggestions for individual drivers.

“Crowdsourcing has been shown effective in navigation systems where traffic congestion information is updated by drivers,” Dr. Hassanein says. “A cloud-based intelligent transportation system would analyze the data provided by sensors in vehicles and drivers’ smartphones to derive real-time intelligence about current road conditions.”

As Dr. Hassanein looks for possible solutions for congestion on roadways, Dr. Cartledge has a similar goal, albeit for the information superhighway. His research into transport systems for elastic optical networks will develop new ways of using the available optical spectrum more efficiently with an eye on increasing the capacity and transmission distance for medium to long range optical fibre networks.

“The rapidly increasing demand for cloud and social media services requires innovative techniques to increase the amount of information that can be transmitted over the global telecommunications network,” Dr. Cartledge says.

NSERC Strategic Partnership Grants support increased research and training in specific areas that could boost Canada’s economy, society or environment over the next decade.

“Funding from NSERC and our partners is extremely important to our researchers and to Queen’s, which prides itself on being a first-class research institution,” says Steven Liss, Vice-Principal (Research). “These grants will increase research activity, further collaboration, and training of highly qualified personnel in fields that will strongly enhance our understanding of information and communication technologies.”

For more information on the funding, visit the NSERC website.

Queen’s distinguishes itself as one of the leading research-intensive institutions in Canada. The mission is to advance research excellence, leadership and innovation, as well as enhance Queen’s impact at a national and international level. Through undertaking leading-edge research, Queen’s is addressing many of the world’s greatest challenges, and developing innovative ideas and technological advances brought about by discoveries in a variety of disciplines.