Penguin Research Centre adopts former grade school.

• Author: Louiseize, Kelly
• Position: Dr. Greg Baiden

It is not old school to think cutting-edge research can take place within the walls of a once inhabited grade school classroom.

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Dr. Greg Baiden, recipient of Canada's Research Chair in Robotics and Mining Automation along with a research team have been embarking on such endeavours at the new Penguin Research Centre, formerly known as Our Lady of Fatima elementary school.

The 40,000 square-foot facility located west of Greater Sudbury is now home to Baiden's telerobotic automation projects (TRAC). The facility relieves pressure to build a research centre on Laurentian University's campus in the immediate future and accelerates project growth, Baiden says.

Baiden, an engineering professor, is a gatherer of sorts and has managed to fill trailers with equipment parts and machinery, including the Canadarm, a space shuttle remote controlled grabbing device that has placed satellites into orbit and recovered malfunctioned ones. It can now be displayed in the gymnasium.

Inside the facility, machine shops, electronic labs and wood working rooms will become the building blocks for mock-down models. The former library will be used as the control centre for telerobotic operations.

Twelve research scientists, some Ph.D. students and others master's degree students, have moved into the classrooms to work on five projects that will enhance technological communication.

Student, Antti Saari, is working on Project Smart Rocks which is the creation of a three-dimensional underground fencing system to track rock flow. A ball, the size of a cantaloupe, possesses antennas around the outside. Inside a battery-operated, circuit-sensing board transmits the rock's location as it falls from the six-inch diametre borehole in-to the ore chambers. When completed, the device will be able to parlay how much ore is in the chambers to the operating centre.

"One of the innovative things about it is that we will have to get into micro-scale automatic clocks to be able to put them inside the Smart Rock," Baiden says.

"This (product) will be the equivalent of an underground GPS system."

The teleloader project investigates the process of loading trucks via a wireless system in an open pit. Baiden is working with Mining Technologies International and Rainbow Concrete to manufacture a down-scale load-haul-dump (LHD) prototype to help with research and to reduce transportation costs when exhibiting on the road.

Rainbow Concrete vice-president Boris Naneff...