A successful collaboration with the Landau Gage Company has helped a UWindsor research team sell their product and secure a research grant, while landing two team members a job and internship with the company, with another position in the works for next year.

When the company turned to UWindsor’s office of Research & Innovation Services seeking expertise to find a way to decrease the measurement inspection time for automotive transmission components, they were connected to a research team led by adjunct professor and Research Centre for Integrated Microsystems manager, Dr. Rashid Rashidzadeh.

Following a year’s worth of research the group of seven PhD and masters candidates in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering found the solution by developing a device they are calling the “contactless coordinate measuring machine.”

The team has been able to reduce the inspection time from fifteen minutes per part to less than two minutes per part, while continuing to meet precise specifications.

“We have reduced testing time by 93 percent,” Dr. Rashidzadeh says. 

He says working on an industrial project such as this has allowed UWindsor students to gain practical experience in their field of study and apply their knowledge to real world problems.

Following the end of the project’s first phase, Landau Gage hired one of the UWindsor team members to a full time job, as well as an internship position, with an additional internship position planned for next year.

As the team continues to develop the system at Landau Gage’s request, and with the support of the Office of Research & Innovation Services, Rashidzadeh has received a Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC) Collaborative Research and Development Grant intended to support the partnership between industry and researchers.

“Using the grant, we are trying to design a new version of the system with more functionality to measure a wider range of geometrical features,” he says.  

With help from the Ontario Centres of Excellence (OCE), the team was able to successfully build a first model that was sold last month for $150,000 US to a US company.

“The performance of the system has been outstanding so far and the company is expecting more orders for the system in the near future,” Rashidzadeh says.

Watch the "Success Story" video that The Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC) has commissioned.