Canadian UAVs has received a Temporary Approval to Operate (TAO) for a Remotely Piloted Aircraft System (RPAS), allowing it to deploy the Aerosonde Mk 4.7 in Canada.
As part of this operation, the Aerosonde system, with its Trillium HD80-MV and IMSAR NSP-3 payloads, was tasked with tracking military movements, day and night, with data streams fed into the TerraSense Analytics supplied Multimodal Input Surveillance & Tracking (MIST) software in real-time. MIST would then conduct automatic target recognition and tracking of mounted and dismounted assets moving throughout the battlespace.
This technology, when paired with advanced sensors, allows for a 24/7, all-weather capability to keep watch of the battlespace without the strenuous attention of a human operator. Operations were conducted in May 2024, through Alberta’s often unpredictable weather, both day and night.
Sean Greenwood, CEO of Canadian UAVs, commented, “The delegation of authority for Canadian UAVs to operate the Aerosonde 4.7 platform in Canada with a DND Tail number is a significant achievement. This is the first authorization of its kind for this type of platform and it demonstrates the capability of Canadian UAVs (operational airworthiness) and Textron Systems (technical airworthiness) to provide the lowest aviation risk profile for the Canadian Government.
“In a time when the threat environment is increasing globally, having a trusted operator flying a very capable system with over 650,000 operational hours for Canada, provides capability and peace of mind for the personnel in uniform.”
Stephen Cannon, Military Programs Manager for Canadian UAVs, also stated, “We are proud of our team for being able to conduct professional and customer-oriented UAV operations in any location, at any time of day. Whether it is land or maritime, sea to sky, we can provide the Government of Canada turnkey operations through our existing fee-for-service contractual vehicles. I couldn’t be more proud of our team.”
Aerosonde UAS and MIST will be featured at CANSEC 2024. Visit Canadian UAVs at Booth 121 to discuss deployment needs through contractor-owned and contractor-operated missions in Canada or abroad.
