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About Precarn Incorporated
 What we do
Precarn helps Canadian companies bridge the "innovation gap", sometimes referred to the "Valley of Death", between university and government research and commercial application. The Precarn Model uses a collaborative research model that helps companies get to their endpoint faster, with less risk and more support. Our raison d’être is to make Canadian firms more globally competitive through the increased development and use of intelligent information and communications technology (iICT) and expertise.
Precarn funds and coordinates collaborative research conducted by industry, university and government researchers, and promotes the importance of iICT throughout the Canadian economy. With investment from federal departments, such as Industry Canada, and provincial government agencies, Precarn plays a key role in growing and strengthening the network of intelligent systems experts, researchers and students in Canada.
Precarn's member companies and organizations create research teams to work jointly on complex technical problems requiring "intelligent solutions."
Precarn is an example of a 4th Pillar organization, facilitating a catalytic role among the three traditional pillars in our economy: industry and business, universities and colleges, and government.
Related Topics: >What is iICT >What is a 4th Pillar organization
Precarn's Goals
To foster growth of the intelligent systems industry in Canada, especially among SMEs, by:
- helping Canadian firms improve productivity and competitiveness;
- supporting the development of new, commercially viable, technologies;
- encouraging the diffusion and commercial exploitation of these new technologies by Canadian firms; and
- developing and sustaining a cadre of highly qualified personnel in the intelligent systems field.
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 intelligent Information &
CommunicationsTechnology
iICT, intelligent information and communications techology, emulates and enhances the human ability to perceive, reason or act. It enables us to do tasks more efficiently, more safely and faster. iICT comes into our daily lives in many forms smart materials, sensors, software and computers embedded in machines and devices.
In the broadest sense, iICT Systems are intelligent systems that emulate and actively employ some aspect of human intelligence in performing a task. In the context of the Precarn mandate, this description is focused on what are generally referred to as "high-end " systems, namely - those that demand some combination of sensing, reasoning, activity and human interaction.
iICT Systems-comprised of sensors, software and computers, embedded in machines and other devices-are the tools that bring the power of computing technology into our daily lives and business practices. Together, these technologies emulate, and even enhance, the human ability to perceive, reason, and act. To put this into context, an archetypal intelligent system would allow a machine to autonomously interact with environments that are complex, foreign, hazardous or unpredictable. Intelligent systems emulate the human ability to perceive, reason, make decisions, and act. They enable machines and devices to anticipate requirements and deal with environments that are complex, unknown, and unpredictable. The broad range of technologies includes robotics, sensors, knowledge-based software, and the enabling human-machine interfaces.
Intelligent systems were first developed for use in traditional industries, such as manufacturing, mining, and forestry, enabling the automation of routine or dangerous tasks to improve productivity and quality. Today, there are intelligent systems applications in virtually all sectors of the Canadian economy, including applications such as health care and the environment, where they deliver social as well as economic benefits.
 A Profile of Canada's Intelligent Systems Industry
Developed for Precarn Incorporated and Industry Canada by Birkenheier & Associates, March 31, 2003
Canadian Intelligent Systems Companies
2003
Here are some examples of technologies employed in iICT. This list, however, is not meant to be exclusive.
- Sensing and Vision Systems: Sensors are integral components of many systems, and which support (among others) robotics, process control, vision and other intelligent systems. To illustrate, proximity sensors are used in collision avoidance and to facilitate close-proximity operations of remote manipulators. Tactile sensors, on the other hand, facilitate the manipulative capability of robot arms and end-effectors. Although many of these sensors have a variety of applications, some are more prevalent in specific industries. A variety of sensors (e.g. moisture, pressure, flow and temperature) are widely applied in the manufacturing sector, to both monitor and control processes. Image-capture sensors include those that capture visual data (e.g. CCD cameras) as well as those that are based on lasers, infrared and spectroscopic technologies. These image-capture sensors, having gone through several miniaturization iterations, have broadened the range of many applications; medical testing and surgical procedures, are two examples that readily come to mind.
Remote sensing technologies comprise a variety of techniques that are used for collecting image or other forms of geographic data. Both image- and data-processing are an integral part of remote-sensing systems. Remote sensing has applications within natural resource management and environmental monitoring, and is routinely used by professionals in the fields of, oceanography, geology, agriculture and forestry among others, The intelligent systems community contributes technologies and software that support image collection and analysis, including sensors for image capture and image-processing software.
Machine-Vision Systems integrate electronic components with software systems to imitate a variety of human functions. These range from image acquisition and mathematical analysis, through to higher-level functions including interpretation and decision-making.
The original market for machine vision systems was the automotive industry. Following this, the technology entered the electronics industry, and is now rapidly becoming ubiquitous, as vision systems are routinely used in a variety of industrial applications, including lumber mills, pharmaceutical factories, food processing plants and medical laboratories. Current commercial machine-vision systems are used in a myriad array of different ways: to measure part size, to detect surface flaws, to verify the absence of gross defects, to guide automated vehicles and robots, and to recognize and match patterns for optical character recognition.
- Computer-Based Intelligent Systems: With its roots in expert systems, Knowledge-Based Systems (KBS) were the first major commercialization of artificial intelligence research. Expert systems contribute to intelligent systems allowing human expertise to be captured and used to aid the decision-making process, and allow for the timely resolution of extremely complex problems. Other KBS technologies include pattern recognition technologies such as statistical pattern recognition, neural networks, case-based reasoning, fuzzy logic, genetic algorithms, and data mining. This area of research also includes intelligent systems work related to databases, distributed databases and agents, reasoning systems and intelligent agents. Knowledge-based systems have been incorporated into equipment diagnosis, process planning, claims processing, and user identification. The industries benefitting from these systems are as diverse as their applications and cover agriculture, manufacturing, transportation, communications, financial analysis, electric power generation, and health, among others.
Process-control systems make use of intelligent-systems technologies to optimize manufacturing processes. As an example, process-control engineering, more specifically, encompasses both the design and on-line, real-time tuning methods for production and pilot plant operations.
Process control and instrumentation systems rely on the integration of actuators, switches, analyzers, controllers, optical and other sensors, and microcomputers. These intelligent machines monitor and control the operation of process equipment, including heat exchangers, distillation columns, chemical reactors, injection moulding machines, surge tanks, pulp digesters, etc. The control systems measure key operating variables such as temperature, pressure, flow, colour, density, etc., and adjust the operating conditions to optimize efficiency.
Recent efforts have explored how expert systems and neural networks can further contribute to the development of reliable and easy to use advanced control systems-which not only monitor operations, but also diagnose problems. Advanced process-control strategies make use of feed forward, cascade, decoupling, and model predictive control.
- Robotic Systems: Robotic systems perform physical manipulations loosely based on human abilities. The technologies involved in developing these systems depend on machine vision, sensors, and knowledge-based software.
The first robot systems-as with machine-vision systems-were implemented in the automotive industry. At that time, robots were used primarily to improve quality and productivity. Further, there was the desire to lower production costs. As technologies evolve, robots have become more useful in environments that are unpredictable and dangerous for humans (e.g. high temperature, radiation areas, munitions sites, environmental cleanup) and, ironically, in ultra-clean environments (e.g. microchip and pharmaceutical plants) where humans represent the undesirable element.
The current markets for robots (in decreasing order of maturity) include: materials handling, painting, spot welding, metal working and machining, continuous path welding, electronics assembly, and clean-room manufacturing/semiconductor production.
Robotic systems also include mobile robots, and their component sub-systems, and service robots (with applications, for example, in healthcare or service industries, such as cleaning and security processing).
- Human-Machine Interfaces for Intelligent Systems: Because intelligent systems complement human abilities, rather than replace them, the human-machine interface is an integral component of many, if not all, of these systems. The interface, which is built around knowledge representation and interactive visualization software, allow operators to interact with intelligent machines by presenting vast quantities of data in formats that make sense to humans. In turn, input-output devices, which transmit and receive position, motion and force data, allow operators to give instructions to machines through movement and force.
Precarn: A 4th Pillar Organization
 4th Pillar organizations provide a facilitating and catalytic role among the three traditional pillars in our economy: industry and business, universities and colleges, and government. They are typically structured as independent, not-for-profit entities, and lever private and public investment to implement shared-cost R&D programs; build shared R&D infrastructure; and supply technical products and services.
To do this, they:
- Create networks of industry and university leaders
- Build partnerships and collaborations to undertake R&D
- Create a national, cross-sectoral vision for R&D excellence
- Develop, attract and retain highly qualified people
In short, 4th Pillar organizations enable innovation and amplify its impact. They bring together communities of common interest to focus on important opportunities to stimulate innovation.
 >>Accelerating Canadian Productivity Growth: Stimulating Innovation through 4th Pillar Organizations, September 2003 (pdf)
Proven Benefits
4th Pillar organizations are catalysts for strategic government investment in enabling platform technologies, the fruits of which will contribute to the development of innovation and wealth across all industrial sectors. Specifically, they:
- accelerate product development and time to market for Canadian companies;
- lead to the production of higher quality products and services;
- increase production of high-value, high-knowledge components of many export commodities;
- stimulate job creation;
- develop new expertise;
- build multi-disciplinary teams to drive breakthrough research and discovery; and,
- stimulate private sector investments in research and development.
The Value Proposition
4th Pillar organizations offer a distinct value proposition for the three pillars (industry, universities and governments). These organizations reduce the risks and costs of R&D investments to more effectively realize Canada’s innovation potential. They eliminate barriers to innovation by bridging governmental, sectoral, and geographical divides.
Industry:
Industrial R&D is often focused on short-term goals, with little funding for "higher risk" research - the research that leads to next-generation product development.
4th Pillar organizations offer industry:
- Facilitated and simplified access to technology, ideas, highly qualified people, partners, project funding and commercialization services
- Trusted brokerage of collaborations
- Compression of the technology learning curve of companies
Universities:
University research can often lead to innovative technologies that have the potential to become successful products. All too often, though, they are not successfully commercialized.
4th Pillar organizations offer universities:
- Facilitated access to research partners, research funding, commercialization opportunities and competitive intelligence to help facilitate commercial outcomes
- Investors, on one side of the valley, are ready to finance credible teams intending to realize product potential, while technology, on the other side of the valley, is not yet in a product-ready state and without the financing and management team
- 4th Pillar organizations help to establish the combination required to move a concept from unacceptable to acceptable risk
Governments:
Canadian taxpayers are seeking greater return on their tax dollars.
4th Pillar organizations offer governments:
- Proven framework for organizational and program innovations
- Prudent management and levering of public funds
- Opportunities for consolidated and simplified management of funding allocations
- Credible source for competitive intelligence and consensus-based advice
4th Pillar Case Studies
CMC, Precarn and CANARIE are representative of Canada’s national 4th Pillar organizations. They have proven track records for generating return on R&D investment.
CMC Microsystems:
The Government of Canada, industrial and provincial government partners, together provide through CMC, focused investments to support university-based research. This provides Canadian universities with enhanced ability to develop highly skilled people with microsystems expertise. This knowledge base serves as the foundation for companies in key industrial sectors such as health care, information and communications technologies, aerospace, automotive, environment, energy and resources. CMC exemplifies the efficient use of government and industry funding. For 1990-2000, DoyleTech Corporation (2001) estimates:
- The value of federal and provincial taxes generated through CMC’s influence on industry revenues is estimated at $3.6 billion;
- Government investment totalled $45 million; the payback to government for every dollar invested is $80;
- The number of post-graduates with CMC support employed by Canadian industry is 6,000 person-years; from 1995-2000, CMC also enabled or influenced 54 start-up companies.
Precarn Incorporated:
Utilizing funding from Industry Canada and other federal sources, Precarn makes possible collaborative efforts that bring together expertise and resources from across Canada to tackle promising, but high-risk, technology opportunities. From 1997 to 2003, by investing about $25 million in public funds into company-led collaborative projects, Precarn levered $43 million in industrial R&D investment. Currently, Precarn has an active portfolio of 60 projects under administration, each of which combines the expertise of private companies, government laboratories and university researchers. In one recent project example, Precarn:
- Worked with experts from government, industry and universities to help map out technology opportunities and challenges related to Canada’s electrical power supply
- Capitalized on its lead role in intelligent systems development, and on the power of its national research network, to pull together a national workshop to stimulate collaboration on innovative approaches to the challenges
- Delivered results: a project involving two power utilities, a provincial laboratory and two universities, that fast-tracked development of an intelligent system that will improve the security of the electrical distribution system and will help prevent future blackouts
CANARIE:
With almost $400 million in support from the Government of Canada, CANARIE has worked for over ten years with industry, academia and government labs to provide four generations of world-leading research and education networks, currently CA*net 4, and deliver more than ten collaborative research and innovation programs focusing on areas such as e-business, e-learning and e-health. In delivering these two cornerstones of the federal government’s Connecting Canadians agenda, CANARIE has helped to generate economic, social and cultural benefits and contributed to the health, prosperity and well-being of all Canadians. In 2002, the federal government recognized CANARIE as one of the leaders of innovation in the country and CANARIE continues to be a model of innovation for many countries around the globe.
The Innovation Challenge
4th Pillar organizations have a critical role to play in addressing the innovation challenge. CMC, Precarn and CANARIE have come together to explore new forms of collaboration that address key issues identified by Canadians. They are representative of internationally respected 4th Pillar organizations, which, together with the other three pillars, are essential to boost Canada’s productivity, competitiveness, and economic and social well-being in the global arena.
Every Canadian has a stake in Canada’s innovation performance. The greatest strengths of industry, government and universities, must be levered, while accounting for and managing their specific interests.
4th Pillar organizations play a critical linking role in Canada’s system of innovation, providing maximum leverage and return on R&D investment.
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