ICICS Brochure

Institute for Computing, Information and Cognitive Systems (ICICS)

Adding Dimension to Research ICICS is an umbrella organization at the University of British Columbia that helps bring down disciplinary walls. Over 150 members from 18 different departments collaborate through ICICS’ programs, state-ofthe-art lab facilities, and industrial contacts. Research projects gain added dimension from this mix of diversified talents, and reach society through commercialization.

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Our Mission: To proactively foster innovative multi-disciplinary research in advanced technologies systems for sustainable communities.

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History ICICS has promoted multidisciplinary research in advanced technologies systems since 1986. In 2000, membership was expanded from Computer Science, Electrical and Computer Engineering, and Mechanical Engineering to include faculty from across the campus. Many synergistic research innovations have resulted that have helped improve our lives. In today’s world, where traditional disciplinary boundaries are constantly shifting, ICICS is ideally positioned to foster scientific and technological breakthroughs that address key societal problems.

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ICICS People: A Spectrum of Talent Over 150 faculty members collaborate with ICICS, from: Computer Science, Electrical and Computer Engineering, Mechanical Engineering, Biomedical Engineering, Architecture and Landscape Architecture, Chemical and Biological Engineering, Mining Engineering, Mathematics, Statistics, Commerce, Medicine, Forestry, Psychology, Music, Linguistics, and Education.

Engineering Computer Science Arts Sauder School of Business

ICICS members and their students have access to ICICS’

Mathematics

state-of-the-art lab facilities and equipment. They

Medicine

also benefit from ICICS programs and other initiatives that strengthen ties between researchers and industry, facilitate technical transfer of ICICS innovations to industry, and provide scholarships for their top students.

Education Forestry Linguistics Psychology

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Facilities The ICICS building is a 60,000 ft2 (5,600 m2) 7-storey facility housing 46 different labs and state-of-theart equipment for conducting research in advanced technologies systems. ICICS researchers and graduate students in these labs are making significant strides in communications technologies, multimedia and 3D, signal processing, computer vision, haptics, robotics, assistive devices, medical imaging, user interfaces, computer animation and graphics, electroacoustic music, and many other areas. Being housed under one roof further encourages ICICS researchers to collaborate across discipline boundaries.

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Outreach 1

Industry Dinner Every year, ICICS hosts an industry dinner that brings together ICICS researchers and executives from industry. Important collaborations are often initiated over dinner and reach the marketplace several years later.

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Communications Workshop ICICS co-hosts an annual communications workshop for industry, the academic community, and the general public. Recent workshops have featured our members’ and keynote speakers’ advances in Wireless Networks, Multimedia Communications, Social Networking, Communications for the Smart Grid, Sensor Networks, and Communications Systems for Healthcare.

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Biomedical Engineering Workshop This workshop hosted by ICICS brings together ICICS members from engineering with their colleagues in medicine to explore exciting new research in biomedical engineering, such as Engineering Approaches to Clinical Problems in Parkinson’s Disease, Image Guidance for Robot-Assisted Surgery, Microelectromechanical Systems for Biomedical Diagnostics, and Catheters and Endoscopes with 3D Imaging Capabilities.

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Expert Talks ICICS brings in top experts in a variety of fields to discuss their research with ICICS members and students.

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KPMG and ICICS ICICS works with the accounting firm KPMG to connect our members with potential industrial supporters.

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Partnership with the Peter Wall Institute ICICS and the Peter Wall Institute for Advanced Studies co-sponser events that bring researchers from a broad range of disciplines together

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to explore exciting new multidisciplinary research initiatives.

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2010 and 2011 ICICS Industry Dinners were hosted at the Royal Vancouver

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Master of Software Systems Program The Master of Software Systems (MSS) program founded and run by ICICS meets the personnel needs of the software industry. It equips students who have bachelor degrees in science, engineering, mathematics, business, and other disciplines with a broad set of software systems skills. The 16-month program comprises 30 credits taken in 3 semesters, and a 4-month industry internship. MSS graduates are highly successful in finding employment, often with prominent Canadian and international companies.

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Key Areas of Research • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •

Architectural design Biomedical technologies Business processes Cognitive and behavioural psychology Communications Computational intelligence Computer graphics Data visualization/mining Digital multimedia Distributed systems eHealth applications Human–computer interaction Integrated systems design Interactive music Mechatronics Microelectromechanical systems (MEMS) Nanotechnology Process automation Robotics and control Signal processing Sustainability Virtual aerospace manufacturing 11

Sample ICICS Research Projects ICICS/TELUS People & Planet Friendly Home Initiative An ICICS/TELUS consortium that promotes sustainability while maintaining and improving quality of life.

A new direction for sustainability...

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Technology is the key to establishing innovative sustainability solutions

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This technology can only be developed from multidisciplinary research, which lies outside industry norms

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ICICS offers multidisciplinary expertise needed for such an endeavor

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This project is applicable to mainstream living environments, can be easily duplicated and will contribute to our economic growth

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Sample ICICS Research Projects

Communications The Communications Group designs and evaluates architectures, algorithms, protocols, and management strategies for wireless, sensor, and optical networks, and for the Internet and other communications systems. In one project, a number of researchers from the group are addressing the looming problem of bandwidth scarcity for wireless devices. Since this problem is mostly due to the inflexibility of spectrum allocation to licensed users, the researchers are investigating the challenges and opportunities of dynamic, flexible spectrum access, or cognitive radio technology. This enables rarely used licensed or unlicensed frequency bands to be utilized by wireless networks. Once optimized, cognitive radio will allow more efficient and flexible use of the radio spectrum.

The Communications Group has many industrial collaborators nationally and abroad, including TELUS Mobility, Nokia, and Qualcomm.

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3D Video Innovations For 3D video to be widely adopted, the viewing experience needs to be rich, immersive, true-to-life, comfortable, and not require the viewer to wear glasses. The ICICS Digital Multimedia Lab is advancing the state-of-the-art in 3D video to achieve this leap in quality. High Dynamic Range (HDR) video technology invented at UBC is being incorporated to provide life-like contrast. Guidelines are being developed that will make capturing of real scenes feasible and the end result pleasant to watch. Novel video processing techniques will allow tailoring of content for different displays. New compression techniques will enable broadcast of dataintensive 3D HDR video.

Glasses-free displays are also being developed. One display uses rapidly rotating optical elements to simultaneously render up to 30 3D viewpoints. Another prototype uses multi-layered LCD panels to produce the 3D effect.

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Sample ICICS Research Projects

Psychology and ICICS The Brain and Attention Research (BAR) Lab uses cuttingedge technology to study human cognition and its associated neural mechanisms and behavioural outcomes in complex, real-world settings. This requires a multidisciplinary approach, with methodologies that include eye-tracking, body-motion tracking, naturalistic observation, functional brain imaging, experience sampling, multimodal stimulation, and physiological monitoring. Populations studied range from young to old and from healthy individuals to people with brain and behavioural disorders due to disease or injury.

The BAR Lab contributes to ICICS projects where psychological assessments are required. One example is assessing the user quality-of-experience when viewing 3D video generated by a suite of novel techniques.

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Managing Disasters Catastrophic events such as earthquakes make the connections among critical infrastructures (power, water, transportation, communications, hospitals, etc.) painfully clear. Coordinating their responses, however, is difficult because managers don’t want to share their data. An ICICS-led team has developed a simulator that helps infrastructure managers prepare for disasters and make coordinated decisions in real-time during crises, while protecting the privacy of exchanged information. The team is now the key player in an international effort involving seven countries, and has a state-of-the-art Emergency Operations Centre in the ICICS building. Their system was chosen to provide planning and decision support during the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver.

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Sample ICICS Research Projects

“Virtual” Aerospace Manufacturing In aerospace manufacturing, the need for precision and the cost of materials like titanium mean that parts must be made right, the first time, with no room for error. A system invented in the Manufacturing Automation Lab enables manufacturers to perfect milling dynamics virtually before any machining occurs.

Roughly 80% of the world’s aerospace companies, including Boeing, Airbus, Pratt & Whitney, and Bombardier, rely on the virtual-machining expertise of UBC’s Manufacturing Automation Laboratory.

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ICICS Goes to Hollywood

Realistic Film Simulations Physics-based animation software invented at ICICS can produce highly realistic simulations of smoke, liquids, clothing, and more. It has been used in films such as the Harry Potter series, 10,000 BC, Hell Boy II: The Golden Army, The Dark Knight, and Inkheart. A scene from Avatar cre-

Image courtesy of Exotic Matter AB

ated using these techniques, in which one of the Na’vi drinks rain water from a leaf, won the “Best Single Visual Effect of the Year” award in 2010 from the Visual Effects Society.

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Sample ICICS Research Projects

Capturing Faces for Animation A markerless facial capture system developed at ICICS uses commercially available video cameras to create animations based on real faces. The result is highly detailed animations that can convey a range of human emotions. A library of different expressions and positions can be created for a given character, which can later be altered—virtual makeup can be applied, for instance—and used in different scenes. Aliens may soon no longer dominate the world of facial animation.

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Computer Vision SIFT is a computer vision technique for identifying scenes and objects that is in wide use around the world. The algorithm breaks up an object or scene into many small features that can be identified regardless of scale, orientation, illumination, etc. These features are then matched to features in a training database, and the object or scene identified. SIFT has many applications, such as enabling mobile robots to locate themselves and assess their surroundings, or stitching together overlapping images into a panoramic scene.

SIFT was used by Sony in their robotic dog, AIBO.

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Sample ICICS Research Projects

Smart Powered Wheelchair A “smart� powered wheelchair under development uses computer vision, sonar, GPS, infrared, etc., to learn about its location and possible hazards, such as staircases or other wheelchairs, to prevent accidents. The aim is to increase the independence and improve the quality of life for people confined to wheelchairs in settings such as group homes, where powered wheelchairs are not currently allowed for safety reasons.

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The Sounds of ICICS ICICS has a state-of-the-art sound studio where researchers from Music, Linguistics, and Electrical Engineering collaborate on award-winning interactive music projects. Software developed in the studio enables a computer to follow a musical score based on pitch, so interactive audio and video clips can be triggered. In another project, gloves are worn by a performer that can be used to generate song and produce additional sounds and images, opening the door to a singer creating her own audio-visual accompaniments.

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Sample ICICS Research Projects

Assistive Technologies Robotic systems are being refined to help elderly people and those with disabilities in their daily activities. One example is an interactive personal robot that interprets a user’s speech, body language, eye movement, and physiological responses when carrying out tasks. These behaviours, and others aimed at manufacturing applications, are being incorporated into the PR2 personal robot, which is known for its “soft touch�. ICICS is the only university facility in Canada equipped with this state-of-the-art robot.

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Guidance System for Robotic Surgery An ICICS team is improving the guidance system of surgical robots so surgeons won’t have to rely on vision alone to guide instruments. Different types of images (e.g., ultrasound, MRI, X-ray, CT scan) taken both before and during the operation are fused to create an “augmented reality” view that will enable surgeons to minimize tissue and nerve damage. The team is focusing on prostate- and kidney-cancer treatment, where minimally invasive surgery is crucial. Their system could be used for a number of procedures in the future, with a profound impact on healthcare—better surgical outcomes, shorter hospital stays, faster recovery times.

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Sample ICICS Research Projects

Mobile Respiratory Monitoring Pulse oximeters monitor blood oxygen levels through a fingertip sensor, and issue alerts when levels become critical. They have saved many lives since becoming the standard of care in anesthesia in the early 1980s. However, a lack of resources and training have limited their use in the developing world, where mortality from anesthesia is 100–1,000 times that in the developed world.

The Phone Oximeter combines a pulse sensor and module with a smart phone to create a low-cost device that can display real-time respiratory information, using symbols that cross language barriers. Clinical expertise will be added to the software in the future that will allow non-specialists to monitor anesthesia. The low cost, simplicity, and real-time wireless communication capability of the Phone Oximeter also lends itself to homebased management of respiratory disease.

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Spin-off Companies A number of successful spin-off companies have been incubated at ICICS, including:

Motion Metrics International Corp.: This internationally successful ICICS-incubated company develops intelligent embedded monitoring systems for the open-pit mining industry.

Point Grey Research Inc.: is a worldwide leader in the development of advanced digital camera technology products for machine vision, industrial imaging, and computer vision applications. The company was founded in 1997 based on 3D stereo camera technology developed in the ICICS Laboratory for Computational Intelligence.

Brightside Technologies: was founded by an ICICS computer scientist and his colleague from Physics, to commercialize their High Dynamic Range (HDR) display technology. These displays are 50 times brighter than conventional displays and are capable of displaying images close to the way humans see them.

Brightside was purchased by Dolby Laboratories in 2007.

Exotic Matter AB: This animation company was co-founded by an ICICS computer scientist based on his photorealistic animations of smoke, liquids, clothing, and more. These techniques adhere to the laws of physics and have been used in films such as the Harry Potter series, 10,000 BC, Hell Boy II: The Golden Army, and The Dark Knight. Exotic Matter did the water animation sequences for Avatar.

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Zite: is an iPad app that uses machine learning to automatically create a personalized “magazine� by discovering user preferences. It is based on technology developed by ICICSsupported UBC computer science students for the web discovery engine Worio. Zite was acquired by CNN in August 2011.

3D Gateway 3D Gateway Solutions, Inc.: is developing innovative capsolutions inc. ture, compression, and display techniques aimed at making 3D the dominant display format.

Recon Instruments: develops display goggles for skiers and snowboarders that provide real-time feedback such as speed, latitude/longitude, altitude, distance travelled, etc. NASA is looking at Recon technology for use in spacesuit helmets.

Cloudburst Research, Inc.: applies the latest research in computer vision to create compelling consumer applications on mobile devices.

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Industrial Collaborators Research innovations realized by ICICS members are transferred to society through industrial partnerships. Hundreds of US patents have been issued to ICICS members, and over 30 of them have been licensed by companies. Companies ICICS members have collaborated with since 2001 include:

Advanced Telecommunications Research Laboratories Agilent Technologies AMS Homecare Inc. Apple Computer Inc. Archus Orthopedics Ascalade Communications AT&T Research BC Hydro BC Ministry of Transportation BC Transmission Corp.

Bell Canada Boeing Braintech Inc. BroadbandTV Cameleon Controls Canfor Cisco Systems City Tel (Prince Rupert) CMC COM DEV Council of Forest Industries Crosslight Curtiss-Wright Controls 28

Dolby Laboratories Dyaptive Systems EJC Tamrock Loaders Electronic Arts EM Technologies Entrust EXI Wireless Systems Inc. Forintek FPInnovations fSONA Systems Corp.

General Motors of Canada Google Greenland Corp.

Greenley & Associates Guard RFID Solutions Inc. Hermary Opto Electronics Hewlett Packard Highland Valley Copper Howe Sound Pulp & Paper IBM Research IDELIX Software Inco Insightful Corporation

Kensington Computer Products Group Kintama Research Corp.

Lafarge North America MacDonald Dettwiler (MDA) Manitoba Hydro McKesson Medical Image Group Micronet Microsoft Corporation MidNet MIMOW Technology Motion Metrics International Motorola Wireless Data Systems Division Nanowave Technologies Inc. Nippon Steel Corporation Nissan Motor Co. Nokia Mobile Phones Nortel China Nortel Networks Northern Digital Inc. Novax Industries Corp.

Nxtphase Corporation Oculus Information

OMNEX Control Systems ULC P2P Health Systems Inc. Paprican (Pulp & Paper Research Institute of Canada) Partners for Advancement of Collaborative Engineering (PACE) Plaintree Systems Inc. PMC-Sierra Point Grey Research Powertech Labs Inc. Pratt and Whitney Canada Process Simulations Limited QLT Inc. Recombo Restore Medical Rogers Cable Communications Inc. SAP Shanghai Post & Telecom Shaw Communications Shell Canada Sierra Wireless SMART Technology Sony Spark Robotics Technology Inc. SST Wireless Inc. Sun Microsystems Syncrude Canada

Tality Corporation TELUS Thomson Corporate Research Thought Technology Ltd. Ultrasonix Medical Corporation Valhalla Systems Inc. VeriChip Corp.

Versawave Western Clinical Engineering Westport Power Inc. Weyerhaeuser Inc. Wireless 2000 Inc. Xerox Canada Zak Technologies

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Collaborations with Other Organizations BC Cancer Agency BC Neurotrauma Fund Canadian Space Agency City of Vancouver Defence Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) Defence Research and Development Canada Greater Vancouver Regional District International Collaboration on Repair Discoveries (ICORD) Japan Advanced Institute for Science and Technology LifeSciences BC National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) National Taiwan University of Science North Pacific Marine Science Foundation North Pacific Universities Mammal Research Consortium

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Connecting Knowledge

UBC’s Institute for Computing, Information and Cognitive Systems (ICICS) is an umbrella organization that promotes collaboration among researchers from the faculties of Applied Science, Arts, Commerce, Education, Forestry, Medicine, and Science, and with industry. ICICS facilitates the collaborative multidisciplinary research of approximately 150 faculty members and 800 graduate students in these faculties.

Our members attract approximately $18 million annually in grants and contracts. Their work strengthens Canada’s

Institute for Computing, Information and Cognitive Systems 289-2366 Main Mall Vancouver, BC V6T 1Z4 Canada Tel: 604-822-6894 Fax: 604-822-9013 www.icics.ubc.ca info@icics.ubc.ca

© Copyright 2011 ICICS. All rights reserved.