Precarn funds six manufacturing R&D projects

Precarn Inc is investing $2.5 million in six projects aimed at injecting intelligent systems into manufacturing processes. Of the six projects, DreamWafer Intelligent Rapid Prototyping is led by Gestion TechnoCap, a Montreal-based R&D and engineering firm. A subsidiary of Techno Cap venture capital firm, Gestion-TechnoCap is the parent firm of DreamWafer, a university spin-off that has developed a system for prototyping electronic printed circuit boards and has 16 patents. Also participating in the DreamWafer project are CMC Microsystems Inc, the Research Institute of Hydro-Québec, Hyperchip Inc and three Quebec-based universities. The other projects and their industrial lead partners are: Intelligent Rights of Way Management (GeoDigital International); Laser Range Finder for Micro-Satellites (Neptec Design Group Ltd); Unique Device Detects Swallowing Impairment (Panacis Medical); Mobile Robots for Civilians (Engineering Services Inc); and, Decision Express: Automatic Processing of Legal Judgments (NLP Technologies). The development-heavy projects were selected from a field of 38 applicants, which are aimed at converting R&D into jobs and revenues....