What is the NSERC Canadian Robotics Network?
NSERC Canadian Robotics Network (NCRN) is a network spanning 8 universities, 9 industrial partners, 3 government agencies and 5 international partners.
The NSERC Canadian Robotics Network (NCRN) is a national partnership that builds upon the highly successful NSERC Canadian Field Robotics Network (NCFRN), with a broader mandate, wider domain of applications, and new, more diverse researchers and partners. We are Canada's only national-scale robotics research funding organization. NCRN brings together an astounding team of Canadian robotics researchers, companies, and government players in a new initiative focused on robotic technologies with substantial commercialization potential. Our partners represent key industrial sectors, identified to provide industrial leadership and funding.
We work on robotics technology for smart Internet-enabled devices that drive down the road, swim underwater, monitor a shopping mall, and fly over valuable natural resources, all based on inter-related core science and technologies. The NCRN brings together big and small industrial partners in several sectors, a strong application focus and a tech-transfer strategy to inject valuable new robotics technology and software into Canadian industry. The main organizing themes of the NCRN are (i) interactive autonomy and (ii) resilient autonomy. These are key technological areas that are both critical to the development of many classes of robotic systems and strategically relevant to all our industrial partners. We will also train exceptional highly qualified personnel (HQP) to meet the acute need for talent and experience in this area of rapid international growth. We seek to build on the strong gender equity among our principal investigators (PIs) to encourage and mentor underrepresented groups in terms of the NCRN HQP population; we have established specific practices to work towards these goals.