Events

[] Join the IEEE Toronto Instrumentation & Measurement – Robotics & Automation Joint Chapter for a technical talk presented by Dr. Binyan Xu from University of Guelph. Monday, July 7, 2025 @ 10:30 – 11:30 AM (EST) Abstract: The use of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) has expanded significantly over recent decades, driven by their flexibility, efficiency, cost-effectiveness, and capability to operate in dangerous or inaccessible environments. With rising demands, UAV systems are increasingly expected to achieve higher levels of autonomy. Model predictive control (MPC), an advanced control methodology that leverages online optimization, provides notable advantages such as optimal performance, efficient handling of multivariable systems, and explicit constraint management, making it a promising solution for UAV control challenges. However, ensuring closed-loop performance with manageable computational demands remains challenging due to the highly nonlinear dynamics of UAVs and the computational complexity of MPC. This talk introduces a Lyapunov-based MPC framework designed specifically to address these challenges, offering stabilized and computationally efficient MPC strategies tailored for UAV applications. Applications of this framework, including trajectory tracking and formation control, will be demonstrated to illustrate its effectiveness. Additionally, the integration of this framework with other Lyapunov-based control techniques for handling unexpected actuator faults and communication disruptions will be discussed, highlighting its potential to further enhance UAV operational efficiency and reliability. Speaker(s): Binyan Xu, Ph.D., Virtual: https://events.vtools.ieee.org/m/487504

[] Join the IEEE Toronto Instrumentation & Measurement – Robotics & Automation Joint Chapter for a technical talk presented by Dr. Shideh Kabiri Ameri from Queen's University. Monday, July 21, 2025 @ 2:00 – 3:00 PM (EST) Abstract: Wearable devices for health monitoring are conveniently being miniaturized, their functionalities have been increased, and they are rapidly being integrated into our daily life. However, the current commercialized wearables are not mechanically compatible with soft, stretchable and dynamic skin which is normally the first point of contact to the body in wearables. This results not only in discomfort but also causes low fidelity and reliability during long term sensing. In this talk, Dr. Kabiri will discuss various novel approaches they have taken to address these issues. Their developed unconventional wearable devices for health monitoring have high sensing performance and low motion artifacts, and in some cases offer visual imperceptibility and non-intrusive sensing that satisfy the user’s privacy and mental comfort. Speaker(s): Shideh Kabiri Ameri, Ph.D., Virtual: https://events.vtools.ieee.org/m/486792

[] Join the IEEE Toronto Instrumentation & Measurement – Robotics & Automation Joint Chapter for a technical talk presented by Dr. Roya Fallah Firoozi from University of Waterloo. Monday, August 11, 2025 @ 1:00 – 2:00 PM (EST) Abstract: As a robot manipulates 3D objects and navigates within 3D scenes, it requires spatial reasoning to ensure safe planning. Recent advances in 3D scene representation, such as Neural Radiance Fields (NeRFs) and Gaussian Splatting, provide high-fidelity digital twins of arbitrary real-world environments from multi-view images. In the first part of the talk, Dr. Firoozi will discuss employing these 3D visual fields augmented to 3D vision-language fields using internet-scale semantic representations from Vision-Language Models (VLMs) for open-vocabulary robot planning. As the robot interacts with other dynamic agents in the scene (multi-agent settings), it also requires temporal reasoning to ensure safe interactive planning. In the second part of the talk, Dr. Firoozi will discuss safe and fault-resilient planning techniques across two categories of interactive planning: (i) Model Predictive Control (MPC), where the prediction and planning steps are decoupled, and (ii) more abstract approaches such as game-theoretic planning, where these steps are tightly coupled. While MPC offers computational efficiency, game-theoretic planning enables more complex modeling of agents' preferences and their mutual influences. Speaker(s): Roya Fallah Firoozi, Ph.D., Virtual: https://events.vtools.ieee.org/m/487494

The development of innovative cybersecurity technologies, tools, and methodologies that advance the energy system’s ability to survive cyber-attacks and incidents while sustaining critical functions is needed for the secure operation of utility and industrial systems. It is essential to verify and validate the ability of the developed solutions and methodologies so that they can be effectively used in practice. Developing solutions to mitigate cyber vulnerabilities throughout the energy delivery system is essential to protect hardware assets. It will also make systems less susceptible to cyber threats and provide reliable delivery of electricity if a cyber incident occurs. This talk will describe how the developed solution can protect the power grid and industrial infrastructure from cyber-attacks and build cybersecurity protection into emerging power grid components and services. This includes microgrid and demand-side management components and protecting the network (substations and productivity lines) and data infrastructure (SCADA) to increase the resilience of the energy delivery systems against cyber-attacks. These developments will also help utility security systems manage large amounts of cybersecurity risk data and cybersecurity operations. For these developments to succeed, cybersecurity testbeds and testing methodologies are necessary to evaluate the effectiveness of any proposed security technologies. The focus on developing cybersecurity capabilities in energy systems should span over multiple strategies: in the near term, midterm, and long term. Continuous security state monitoring across cyber-physical domains is the goal in the near term. The development of continually defending interoperable components that continue operating in degraded conditions is required in the midterm. Developing methodologies to mitigate cyber incidents to return to normal operations quickly is necessary for all system components in the long term. We will discuss R&D efforts in these areas centered on developing operational frameworks related to communication and interoperability, control, and protection. The importance of interoperability between smart grid applications and multi-vendor devices must be considered. The current grid comprises multi-vendor devices and multi-lingual applications that add to the complexity of integrating and securing the smart grid components. Standards development entities have been working with utilities, vendors, and regulatory bodies to develop standards that address smart grid interoperability. These include IEEE, IEC, NIST, ANSI, NERC, and others. In this presentation, we will conceptualize a comprehensive cyber-physical platform that involves the communication and power network sides integrating the cyber information flow, physical information flow, and the interaction between them. A data-centric communication middleware provides a common-data bus to orchestrate the system’s components, leading to an expandable multi-lingual system. We will present a hardware protocol gateway that was developed as a protocol translator capable of mapping IEC 61850 generic object-oriented substation event (GOOSE) and sampled measured value (SMV) messages into the data-centric Data Distribution Service (DDS) global data bus. This is necessary for integrating the widely used IEC 61850-based devices into an exhaustive microgrid control and security framework. We will also discuss a scalable cloud-based Multi-Agent System for controlling large-scale penetration of Electric Vehicles (EVs) and their infrastructure into the power grid. This is a system that can survive cyber-attacks while sustaining critical functions. This framework’s network will be assessed by applying contingencies and identifying the resulting signatures for detection in real-time operation. As a result, protective measures can be taken to address the dynamic threats in the foreseen grid-integrated EV parks where the developed system will have an automated response to a cyber-attack. In distributed energy management systems, the protection system must be adaptive. Communication networks assist in reacting to dynamic changes in the microgrid configurations. This presentation will also describe a newly developed protection scheme with extensive communication provided by the IEC 61850 standard for power networks to monitor the microgrid during these dynamic changes. The robustness and availability of the communication infrastructure are required for the success of protection measures. This adaptive protection scheme for AC microgrids can survive communication failures through energy storage systems. Co-sponsored by: Power Electronics/Industrial Electronics Speaker(s): Osama, Room: UA1140, Bldg: UA, 2000 Simcoe Street North, Oshawa, Ontario, Canada, L1G7K4

EXPLAINABLE AND ROBUST AI FOR 6G Dr. SINEM COLERI When: November 21st at 10H30 AM EST Via zoom: https://uqtr.zoom.us/j/81521084215?pwd=bchQDndZg7DTlpVuaeag6bhGwaOvn9.1 Meeting ID: 815 2108 4215 Password: 018477 Unlike previous generations of wireless networks, which were primarily designed to meet the requirements of human communications, 5G networks enable extensive data collection from machines. As we transition to 6G, the emphasis moves beyond connectivity toward leveraging this machine-generated data for a new spectrum of control applications, such as UAV swarms, collaborative robots, and cooperative autonomous vehicles. Designing communication systems for these advanced control applications introduces a distinct set of challenges. These include meeting stringent requirements for delay and reliability, addressing the semantics of control systems, and ensuring robust resource management. In the first part of this talk, we explore ultra-reliable channel modeling and communication techniques based on the integration of extreme value theory with generative artificial intelligence (AI). These methods offer improved accuracy in predicting rare but critical events while providing adaptivity to dynamic scenarios. In the second part of the talk, we explore the benefits of employing optimization theory based, explainable, and robust AI in radio resource management for the joint design of control and communication systems. These approaches offer a systematic methodology to enhance robustness and interpret decisions made by black-box AI models. BIOGRAPHY Dr. Sinem Coleri is a Professor in the Department of Electrical and Electronics Engineering at Koc University. She is also the founding director of Wireless Networks Laboratory (WNL) and director of Ford Otosan Automotive Technologies Laboratory. Sinem Coleri received the BS degree in electrical and electronics engineering from Bilkent University in 2000, the M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in electrical engineering and computer sciences from University of California Berkeley in 2002 and 2005. She worked as a research scientist in Wireless Sensor Networks Berkeley Lab under sponsorship of Pirelli and Telecom Italia from 2006 to 2009. Since September 2009, she has been a faculty member in the department of Electrical and Electronics Engineering at Koc University. Her research interests are in 6G wireless communications and networking, AI-based wireless networks, machine-to-machine communications, wireless networked control systems and vehicular networks. Dr. Coleri has more than 150 publications with citations over 12000 (Google scholar profile). She has received numerous awards and recognitions, including TUBITAK (The Scientific and Technological Research Council of Turkey) Science Award in 2024; N2Women: Stars in Computer Networking and Communications in 2022; TUBITAK Incentive Award and IEEE Vehicular Technology Society Neal Shepherd Memorial Best Propagation Paper Award in 2020; Outstanding Achievement Award by Higher Education Council in 2018; and Turkish Academy of Sciences Distinguished Young Scientist (TUBA-GEBIP) Award in 2015. Dr. Coleri currently holds the position of Editor-in-Chief at the IEEE Open Journal of the Communications Society. Dr. Coleri is an IEEE Fellow, AAIA Fellow and IEEE ComSoc Distinguished Lecturer. Speaker(s): Dr. Coleri Virtual: https://events.vtools.ieee.org/m/509632

Despite the rapid advances in Large Language Models (LLM), research efforts have historically focused disproportionately on high-resource languages, particularly English, leaving over 7,000 living languages underserved. We address the fundamental challenge of bridging the gap of low-resource language (LRL) translation in multilingual language models. Low-resource languages are typically characterized by a scarcity of both unlabeled and labeled data, as well as limited tools and models. This talk explores strategies aimed at bridging the gap of low-resource language (LRL) translation in multilingual models, where LRLs are characterised by a limited scarcity of both unlabeled and labelled data, as well as limited tools and models. Speaker(s): Dr. Lee, Room: 313, Bldg: Bergeron Centre for Engineering Excellence, 11 Arboretum Ln, North York, Ontario, Canada, M3N 3A7

ABSTRACT: The compute demands of AI and robotics continue to rise due to the rapidly growing volume of data to be processed; the increasingly complex algorithms for higher quality of results; and the demands for energy efficiency and real-time performance. In this talk, we will discuss the design of efficient tailored hardware accelerators and the co-design of algorithms and hardware that reduce the energy consumption while delivering swift real-time and robust performance for applications including deep neural networks, data analytics with sparse tensor algebra, and autonomous navigation. Throughout the talk, we will highlight important design principles, methodologies, and tools that can facilitate an effective design process and various forms of co-design that can broaden the design space. BIO: Vivienne Sze is a professor in the Electrical Engineering and Computer Science Department at MIT. She works on computing systems that enable energy-efficient machine learning, computer vision, and video compression/processing for a wide range of applications, including autonomous navigation, digital health, and the internet of things. She is widely recognized for her leading work in these areas and has received awards, including faculty awards from Google, Facebook, and Qualcomm, the Symposium on VLSI Circuits Best Student Paper Award, the IEEE Custom Integrated Circuits Conference Outstanding Invited Paper Award, and the IEEE Micro Top Picks Award. As a member of the Joint Collaborative Team on Video Coding, she received the Primetime Engineering Emmy Award for the development of the High-Efficiency Video Coding video compression standard. She is a co-editor of High Efficiency Video Coding (HEVC): Algorithms and Architectures (Springer, 2014) and co-author of Efficient Processing of Deep Neural Networks (Synthesis Lectures on Computer Architecture, Morgan Claypool, 2020). For more information about Prof. Sze’s research, please visit (https://can01.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fsze.mit.edu%2F&data=05%7C02%7Ckelly.hunter%40mail.utoronto.ca%7C0c1d2bb1b79a45865a2f08de1bb0ba44%7C78aac2262f034b4d9037b46d56c55210%7C0%7C0%7C638978643061187412%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJFbXB0eU1hcGkiOnRydWUsIlYiOiIwLjAuMDAwMCIsIlAiOiJXaW4zMiIsIkFOIjoiTWFpbCIsIldUIjoyfQ%3D%3D%7C0%7C%7C%7C&sdata=rBYJubhz5nDvA8lPUSMBcl2TGsc9ZebyegOiKWWoVtg%3D&reserved=0). Speaker(s): Vivienne Room: MC252, Bldg: Mechanical Engineering Building, 5 King's College Road, Toronto, Ontario, Canada, M5S3G8

Photonic Pathways to Scalable and Low-Cost Free-Space Optical Satellite Downlinks Abstract: Free-space optical communication (FSOC) is rapidly emerging as a cornerstone of high-bandwidth, low-latency connectivity for space-to-ground and inter-satellite networks. Yet the downlink to ground remains the most technically demanding segment, where atmospheric turbulence distorts optical wavefronts and drives system complexity and cost. Traditional bulk-optics solutions are difficult to align, power-hungry, and expensive to reproduce. Photonic technologies offer a transformative alternative: compact, robust, and inherently manufacturable architectures that merge adaptive optics, beam combination, and phase control directly on a chip. These integrated systems enable ultra-high-speed, real-time correction of turbulence with minimal mass and power, while leveraging semiconductor fabrication to achieve wafer-scale replication and dramatically lower cost. This cost reduction opens the possibility of deploying many more optical ground stations, enhancing global network coverage, redundancy, and resilience. By uniting astronomical adaptive optics with scalable photonic integration, we are charting a path toward affordable, high-performance optical downlinks to ground. I will highlight recent prototype demonstrations and outline our roadmap toward fully photonic optical ground terminals that bring the precision of astronomical instrumentation to the future of space communications. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Voies photoniques pour des liaisons descendantes optiques par satellite en espace libre, évolutives et peu coûteuses Résumé: La communication optique en espace libre (FSOC) s'impose rapidement comme un pilier de la connectivité à haut débit et faible latence pour les réseaux sol-espace et inter-satellites. Cependant, la liaison descendante vers le sol demeure le segment le plus complexe sur le plan technique, car la turbulence atmosphérique y déforme les fronts d'onde optiques, ce qui accroît la complexité et le coût du système. Les solutions optiques classiques sont difficiles à aligner, énergivores et coûteuses à reproduire. Les technologies photoniques offrent une alternative révolutionnaire : des architectures compactes, robustes et intrinsèquement industrialisables qui intègrent l'optique adaptative, la combinaison de faisceaux et le contrôle de phase directement sur une puce. Ces systèmes intégrés permettent une correction ultrarapide et en temps réel de la turbulence avec une masse et une consommation d'énergie minimales, tout en tirant parti de la fabrication des semi-conducteurs pour une réplication à l'échelle de la plaquette et une réduction drastique des coûts. Cette réduction des coûts ouvre la voie au déploiement d'un nombre beaucoup plus important de stations optiques au sol, améliorant ainsi la couverture, la redondance et la résilience du réseau mondial. En associant l'optique adaptative astronomique à l'intégration photonique à grande échelle, nous ouvrons la voie à des liaisons optiques terrestres performantes et abordables. Je présenterai des démonstrations récentes de prototypes et décrirai notre feuille de route vers des terminaux optiques terrestres entièrement photoniques, qui mettront la précision des instruments astronomiques au service des communications spatiales de demain. Prof. Suresh Sivanandam, University of Toronto About / A propos The High Throughput and Secure Networks (HTSN) Challenge program is hosting regular virtual seminar series to promote scientific information sharing, discussions, and interactions between researchers. https://nrc.canada.ca/en/research-development/research-collaboration/programs/high-throughput-secure-networks-challenge-program Le programme Réseaux Sécurisés à Haut Débit (RSHD) organise régulièrement des séries de séminaires virtuels pour promouvoir le partage d’informations scientifiques, les discussions et les interactions entre chercheurs. https://nrc.canada.ca/fr/recherche-developpement/recherche-collaboration/programmes/programme-defi-reseaux-securises-haut-debit NEW: In order to promote more open discussions/interactions, at the end of the presentation and Q/A, we will allow other experts in this field (quantum comm) to present very briefly their work (1 slide, 2 min max) or their company. / Afin de favoriser des discussions/interactions plus ouvertes, à la fin de la présentation et des questions/réponses, nous permettrons aux experts de ce domaine (communications quantiques) de présenter très brièvement leurs travaux (1 diapositive, 2 min max) ou leur compagnie. Co-sponsored by: National Research Council, Canada. Speaker(s): Prof. Suresh Sivanandam, Virtual: https://events.vtools.ieee.org/m/514232

Software-Defined Optics: Opening New Frontiers in Perception and Autonomy From autonomous vehicles to smart infrastructure, the future of intelligent systems depends on sensors that can adapt, learn, and perceive with precision. Lumotive is pioneering this transformation with light-control metasurface (LCM) technology, a revolutionary solid-state beam-steering approach that replaces mechanical LiDAR with fully programmable, software-defined optics. In this talk, Dr. Calvin Cheng, Director of Applications and Customer Success at Lumotive, will explore how LCM-based LiDAR systems enable dynamic scanning, on-device intelligence, and efficient 3D perception across diverse applications. Through live demonstrations and system-level insights, he will illustrate how Lumotive’s innovations are redefining the boundaries of perception and autonomy and how collaboration between academia and industry can accelerate the next generation of intelligent sensing systems. Speaker(s): Calvin Cheng PhD Room: 3038, Bldg: Macleod building, 2356 Main Mall, Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, V6T 1Z4, Virtual: https://events.vtools.ieee.org/m/514914

==Great news: Registration Deadline EXTENDED !== Register before November 24, to hear and mingle with our inspiring speakers and special guests while you enjoy an amazing dinner: Special Guest: Dr. Tom Murad, President IEEE Canada. Special Guest Speaker: Matthew Vos - Manager Operations, Independent Electricity System Operator (IESO). Keynote: Amy Sinclair "Bridging Worlds: How Substation Communications Evolved and where IT meets OT". NEW Speaker: Ali Alavi, "Engineering in the Age of AI: What Changes, What Doesn't, and How to Stay Ahead". You are cordially invited to attend the 2025 Annual General Meeting (AGM) of the IEEE Hamilton Section taking place at the Holiday Inn & Suites Oakville @Bronte on Saturday, November 29, 2025 starting at 5:30 PM. Registration deadline: Nov. 24 Cost: $10 for students or graduate students, $10 for IEEE Life Members, $20 for IEEE members, $30 for non-IEEE member guests. Registration fees inclusive of deluxe dinner of your choice (beef, chicken, seafood or vegetarian). Parking available at the venue for free. Please register before the deadline (Nov. 24) and pay by credit card. Multiple registrations can be done at the same time, click "Add Another Guest" before you click "Register and Pay Now". Each attendee must register so that a name tag can be created. Agenda: Program: 5:30 PM: Registration, Networking, hors d'oeuvres. 6:00 PM: Dinner Served. 6:20 PM: AGM Presentations by Special Guest (while you eat). - Dr. Tom Murad, President IEEE Canada. - Special Guest Speaker: Matthew Vos - Manager Operations, Independent Electricity System Operator (IESO). - Keynote Speaker: Amy Sinclair "Bridging Worlds: How Substation Communications Evolved and where IT meets OT". - Ali Alavi, "Engineering in the Age of AI: What Changes, What Doesn't, and How to Stay Ahead". 8:00 PM: IEEE Hamilton Exec. Committee 2024 report (incl. 2025 election results) Dress code: Elegant casual. Room: Room name: Royal Room, Bldg: Holiday Inn & Suites Oakville @ Bronte, 2525 Wyecroft Rd, Oakville, Ontario, Canada, L6L6P8

[] Welcome to the a new look for the IEEE Toronto AGM where we invite everyone to mingle and expand their network. Enjoy a trendy and private venue with drinks, appetizers, and food stations serving dinner. The event will feature short presentations from keynote speaker Danny Christidis, and presentations by the IEEE Toronto officers. Parking is available for an additional fee in nearby Green P lots (see the map below). Transit is reommended where possible. Twist Gallery, 1100 Queen Street West, Toronto, Ontario, Canada, M6B 3J7

DRIVING AI-NATIVE RAN INNOVATION WITH THE SIONNA RESEARCH KIT Dr. Sebastian Cammerer, Senior Research Scientist, NVIDIA Registration Link: []https://events.vtools.ieee.org/m/517965 Host: IEEE (mailto:messaoud.ahmed.ouameur@uqtr.ca?subject=From%20Propagation%20Models%20to%20Physics-Based%20Digital%20Twins%20of%20Emerging%20Wireless%20Communication%20Systems%20-%20Saint%20Maurice%20Sect%20Chap,%20COM19) When: December 2nd at 10H30 AM EST Via zoom: https://uqtr.zoom.us/j/81521084215?pwd=bchQDndZg7DTlpVuaeag6bhGwaOvn9.1 Meeting ID: 815 2108 4215 Password: 018477 ABSTRACT AI will become a cornerstone of future wireless communication systems, enabling radio access networks (RANs) that dynamically adapt to specific radio frequency (RF) environments and enhance their performance even after deployment. Novel paradigms such as end-to-end learning for pilotless transmissions and semantic communications add to the transformative potential of AI. Integrating neural network components into the signal processing pipeline of wireless transceivers poses research challenges, particularly in meeting the stringent, often sub-millisecond, inference latency required by RANs. As such, the full potential of AI-native RANs depends on three main factors: (a) the development of robust software tools, (b) the deployment of specialized hardware platforms for real-time AI acceleration, and (c) the design of fundamentally new transceiver algorithms. In this talk, we outline a path toward prototyping an AI-native RAN using the Sionna Research Kit—an open-source platform designed for development, training, and deployment of AI-native wireless communication systems. We present a 5G NR-compliant real-time neural receiver connected to commercial user equipment, demonstrating how research ideas can be rapidly transformed into over-the-air prototypes using open-source tools. To foster collaboration and accelerate progress in the field, all experiments and results will be made openly available, lowering the barrier to entry and enabling researchers worldwide to translate their ideas into real-world wireless communication systems. BIOGRAPHY Dr. Sebastian Cammerer is a Senior Research Scientist at NVIDIA, working at the intersection of wireless communications and machine learning. He is one of the core developers and maintainers of the Sionna open-source link-level simulator. Before joining NVIDIA, he received his PhD in Electrical Engineering and Information Technology from the University of Stuttgart, Germany. His main research interests are machine learning for wireless communications and channel coding. His work has been recognized with several awards, including the VDE ITG Dissertationspreis 2022, the IEEE SPS Young Author Best Paper Award 2019, and third prize in the Nokia Bell Labs Prize 2019. Speaker(s): Dr. Cammerer, Virtual: https://events.vtools.ieee.org/m/517965