Control engineering systems

Dr. David Weaver describes his youthful interest in gasoline-engine powered go-karts, home-built radios, servicing cars, and how this led him to study mechanical engineering. He left his first job with the Ford Motor Company in Oakville to return to university for a Master's degree on satellites for Spar Aerospace and then a PhD in mathematics and physics. He found a university position and began researching nuclear for Ontario Hydro Research and hydroelectric power generation for Nova Scotia Power. He contributed to a model study of flood protection for the City of Venice conducted by the Dutch Hydrodynamics Laboratories in Delft. He worked on a fusion energy project the Joint European Taurus (JET) in England. In retirement, he has worked for the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission, and with Babcock and Wilcox, Ontario Power Generation, and Atomic Energy of Canada. He talks of the evolution of computational tools from slide rules to computers and their applications to autonomous vehicles – and the importance of selecting the appropriate tool to max the complexity of a problem.

Agricultural engineer Yves Choinière describes his work – he considers himself generalist who applies technology from many engineering disciplines to the creation of food. Over the past two decades, farming has been transformed by automation – for example: monitoring animal well being, milking robots, feeding robots in milk production; GPS-controlled tractors that optimize seeding, fertilizer or pesticide spraying. He works with specialists from civil engineering, mechanical engineers, electrical engineers, food, chemical and food processing engineers. He selected a career in agricultural engineering because, he wanted to be an engineer and grew up on a farm – he still owns and operates a farm. He recalls the small, not very efficient, farms of the '80s and the re-engineering of farm production that was necessary to reduce workloads and enhance quality of life and productivity. At the time there was a deficit in Canadian food projection – Canada was not producing enough beef, chicken, vegetables and fruits to satisfy its own needs. He describes the development of natural ventilation systems for livestock housing, returning to the University of Ottawa to earn a Masters degree, supervised by Professor Tanaka, using wind engineering to develop systems for farm buildings. After a decade with the Ontario Ministry of Agriculture and Food, he returned to Quebec to assume control of the family farm near Granby from his father. He started a private consulting company that rapidly grew - largely in response to the need for modern agricultural enterprises to be efficient – prices have not really changed over the past 40 years but costs have markedly increased.