Canadian drone industry is running – with Ukraine lessons

This has been 24 years since what is widely considered to be the first deadly drone strike: a predatory UAV attack on a convoy of Al-Qaeda vehicles in Afghanistan barely nine weeks after the September 11 attacks.

The strike killed Mohammed Atef, a son -in -law of Osama bin Laden and at the head of the group’s military operations, and clearly indicated that the 21st century war would see an important role for unmanned air vehicles (UAU).

Large expensive fixed wing drones such as Predator and Reaper have their place. Canada ordered a fleet of similar drones that should be operational in 2033.

But the war in Ukraine has moved the attention of drones of several million dollars to much cheaper, smaller and sometimes disposable drones.

Like soldiers from around the world, the Canadian Armed Forces have seen the Ukrainian conflict transforming what was largely an artillery war just 18 months ago in a nightmarish competition between buzzing machines and operators who guide them.

“This is revolutionizing part of the battle space,” said Royal Canadian Air Force Lieutenant-Col. Chris Labbé, who heads the joint office of aircraft systems not linked to forces. “You will see different academics or analysts now talk about the” Litoral Air “-really the space between the ground and 1,000 meters in the air, perhaps above this.”

This space was dominated by helicopters, said Labbé. But the war of Nagorno-Karabakh, then the war in Ukraine, accelerated the progress of the drone war.

The Canadian army is determined to follow this change, he said.

A chalet weapons industry

Almost everything on small drones represents a change of direction in military thought and industrial production. For decades, supply tends to ever higher prices and longer deadlines. The F-35, for example, is such a complicated and expensive weapon system that several countries had to buy and invest in advance.

Drones do not need giant factories with sophisticated production lines. Instead, said Tom Barton de la Défense de Janes in London, Ukraine has decentralized production in small workshops.

“Some of the ways in which guys in their garages actually rationalize the 3D impression and the revolution of the quantities of these drones, you would not have thought of being imaginable so far,” said Barton.

Look | Drone capable of carrying an injured soldier: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9mqutqt0lni

He said that the Russians also cultivated 3D printing and the manufacture of an army of home engineers. Their large distribution makes it impossible to close the production by bombing or missile strikes.

Labbé claims that Ukrainian drone manufacturers are also experiencing and sharing the results, which quickly stimulates improvements in surveillance and strike capacities.

“The speed at which this innovation occurs is absolutely praised,” he said.

Labbé said that to further stimulate innovation, Ukraine has instituted a reward system for front -line units by which those who are more successful receive points they can use to buy a new online drone kit.

Challenge

The Canadian Forces wish to capture part of this same innovative energy and, to this end, have published a series of “challenges” to Canadian drone manufacturers thanks to the Innovative Solutions Canada (ISC) program.

The industry has noticed the change, explains Philip Reece, CEO of Indro Robotics – both by going up to gain and the speed with which the government examines the submissions.

“They come back with fairly well thought out questions, then it goes to tests first, then get their supplies,” he said.

Look | Find out more about the Canadian drone industry:

Canada applies Ukraine lessons in a new arms race for drones

Canada’s government and soldiers are trying to get a Canadian advantage in a new arms race for drones by issuing industry challenges and testing everything, marine drones that can attack ships with lasers that can burn drones in the air.

A challenge currently displayed by ISC invites manufacturers to submit an “attributive interceptor” drone, capable of attacking enemy drones “of several hundred grams to several hundred kilograms” which can work just above the level above altitudes of more than 3000 meters and reach speeds “more than 200 km / h.”

The language of the challenge invites designers to seek “creative and innovative solutions” for the interception of drones beyond “to contact their target with an explosion”.

The sandbox

Examples of this new approach have already been tested on a site called The Sandbox in Suffield, in Alberta, including a successful test of a directed energy weapon that burst a target drone in high green flames in the air and crash on the ground.

Another interceptor drone tested in the sandbox hovered over its target and dropped a net, spun the propellers of the target drone.

Another field of furious research and development inspired by the Ukraine War is command and control of drones in a battle space where radio and even GPS signals are easily stuck.

The Russians were the first to realize that they could overcome the scrambling by attaching cable coils to fiber optic to their drones. The control signals travel along this thin hair filament, rather than in the air where it can be stuck. Ukraine recently piloted a drone with a 50 -kilometer fiber coil.

These innovations in turn have led innovation in the counter-ground world, said Reece.

“Now they make more kinetic response,” he said. “Radio and GPS scrambling no longer cuts it when you have a drone that has optical fibers. So it certainly advances very quickly.”

Air, land and sea

The development of the Canadian drone is not limited to the air. The navy adapted its targets of Hammerhead naval artillery to create a marine attack drone loaded with explosives. It was successfully tested (and exploded) last month.

Labbé claims that Ukrainian operations of drone and anti-shipping missiles in the Black Sea are “an incredible achievement that greatly speaks of the potential of unrelated systems”.

Look | The navy tests the marine attack drone: https://www.youtube.com/watch?

He says that a current interest is in the medium -sized air drones area, weighing hundreds of kilograms, which can evacuate a victim on a stretcher or provide troops forward of the rear areas.

And Reece said her business experienced land drones that can move faster than a car and work with air -based drones for recognition.

“They can also move forward and set up mesh networks, therefore secure communications that cannot be hacked can be advanced,” he said.

One of the advantages of drones is that they often cost much less than their targets – acting as an equalizer of the battlefield against opponents with greater force in vehicles, planes and ships.

Barton said that drones in Ukraine have been used to eliminate elements of expensive Russian air defense systems, and a well -equipped drone force with sufficient operators would even encourage the strongest opponent to hesitate to launch an armored attack.

He said that for a country like Canada with large borders to defend, “drones are potentially an excellent solution”.

Canadian drones for Europe?

Drons could also offer a path in European defense purchase agreements to which Canada wishes to access, if Canada can develop an industry that produces desirable drones for European soldiers.

“Now the inflection point between drones and robots and AI,” said Reece. “Canada knows we are. You can see by all the, commercial and government responses, it’s time to move forward.”

Reece claims that Canada is in a solid position in part because Transport Canada has been ahead of most national regulators to recognize the potential of the industry and create sufficiently permissive conditions to allow the use of the Drone to flourish.

“We have the skills here, we have know-how and we certainly need,” he said. “So, if we are already ahead of drones and robots and we can keep the pace of AI, assemble them certainly make us an international power.”