Grants and Contributions

Wildfire frequency, size and intensity continues to increase dramatically across the globe with devastating effects upon human life and health, wildlife, the environment, natural resources, air quality and economies. Wildfire management costs rise steadily, but budgets have not kept pace and agencies are frequently overwhelmed.

Thousands of wildfires start each year in Canada. Most are rapidly detected and managed but the remaining, due to limitations in detection methods and complications from other factors, develop into catastrophic blazes and are responsible for 90% of the forested area burned in this country each year. One such wildfire was the Horse River fire of 2016 that devastated Fort McMurray, Alberta and resulted in costs exceeding $9 billion (insured and uninsured). It was not detected until it was 2 hectares (140m by 140m) in size. 4pi Lab, a Calgary-based company, is developing a satellite-based system (EPiC) to detect and geo-locate very small wildfires (~10m) in real-time from space and alert wildfire management agencies across the globe. This will allow for very early wildfire intervention and disaster prevention. 4pi Lab will use the CSA funding to develop EPiC-lite (a ground-based version of the EPiC system) for the purposes of further proving the concept, validating many of the subsystems, techniques and methodologies necessary for space deployment and demonstrating EPiC's effectiveness to wildfire management agencies, policy-makers, stakeholders and investors.

Inspired by nanotextures in nature, Edgehog utilizes recent advances in material science to increase the efficiency of space solar cells by eliminating the reflected and wasted light from the glass surface. This project addresses material and design considerations for the implementation of Edgehog nanotextured glass in space conditions, including intense thermal and radiation fluctuations. Over the two-year project, Edgehog will perform validation testing for demonstrating the unique suitability of this nanotextured anti-reflection approach for space conditions, a step towards the deployment of space solar panels with record-breaking energy output and alleviating this major constraint in spacecraft design. Not only will this project allow Canada to expand our footprint in the fast-growing space market, but it is also a steppingstone for this Canadian company to accelerate the growth of terrestrial solar adoption and reduce greenhouse gas emissions throughout the world.

Earth observation technologies play a vital role for national security, precision agriculture, urban planning, weather forecasting and disaster management. Despite benefits of space-based assets, balloon-based high-altitude platform (HAP) remain the most affordable way to access near-space and leverage unique persistent remote-sensing capabilities at this altitude. There is an important and growing need for persistent sensing of specific areas of interest to compliment routine monitoring from space-based assets. The proposed activities will focus on developing flight capabilities for a constellation of autonomous HAPs for Earth observation. This will showcase cutting-edge Canadian innovation in space robotics and will bring value to several important sectors, such as urban mobility, wildfire management, arctic sovereignty, and more.

Integrity Testing Laboratory (ITL) is proposing to design and built a unique Dual Vertical/Horizontal Loading Ion-beam Vacuum Facility for Novel Space Material Processes to be located at ITL that will be used for all present and future SMP's and for deposition of thin DLC films and coatings. The project is composed of two major parts:
a) An intensive R&D program on designing/building a unique low-energy industrial ion-beam system, ready for SMP's applications, with horizontal/vertical sample manipulators, and for deposition of high-quality thin films of DLC, SiOx, etc., in clean room conditions.
b) An extensive R&D program adapting the existing and developing new processes to the new system. By conducting all space SMP's in this facility, a unique Canadian source for manufacturing of highly-innovative space materials with unique new properties for use in LEO/GEO/Planetary orbits will be created. Presently, all such materials for GEO and LEO applications are coming from other countries. Combining the developed at ITL SMP's with deposition of thin films, ITL will create a unique Canadian facility with such materials made in Canada.

Low profile (“flat panel”) Electronically Scanned Antenna (ESA) array system offers an attractive solution for broadband mobile HTS-SATCOM applications, particularly for LEO satellite networks. It is low profile can electronically steer the beam to a desired direction when the satellite, ground terminal, or both are mobile, without any mechanical movement. Recent advancements in planar antenna and silicon technologies provide reliable fabrication methods for compact low-profile multi-antenna modules incorporating multi-channel monolithic microwave integrated circuits (MMIC), the active phased array (A-PAA) system becomes a highly promising solution for Ka-band mobile SATCOM. To make A-PAA cost-effective and mass-producible for commercial market deployment, a new modular/scalable and software definable architecture for A-PAA is developed in this project.

Quantum Key Distribution (QKD) aims at creating shared cryptographic keys by exploiting the fundamental laws of quantum physics. Terrestrial QKD networks suffer from a limitation related to the maximal possible physical distance between directly connected nodes. Satellite based QKD network is an answer to this call. Secure-key sharing can be achieved between ground stations located across the nation in a timely, reliable and economical way with QKD-capable satellites. However, compared to its optical fibre-based counterpart, a satellite QKD network has a time-varying network topology and fluctuating QKD key generating capacities between the satellites and ground stations. This brings in unique new challenges related to planning and operations. Factors such as weather conditions, seasonal effects, and many others need to be taken into consideration in designing and running the system in the most effective and economical way. The project aims at developing the tools needed to solve such challenges, mainly through QKD network control technologies, optimization algorithms, their software implementation, and integration with QKD hardware.

This project focuses on the development of an Intelligent Power Switch (Intelligent Switch) for use in stratospheric balloon power sub-systems. The Intelligent Switch will provide autonomous output load protection in both short circuit and over current cases, as well as autonomously shut down during an overvoltage or undervoltage condition. In addition, an integrated telemetry system will provide on demand voltage, current, power and temperature for each switch via a serial interface. The Intelligent Switch will simplify the design of stratospheric balloon power subsystems by integrating autonomous load safety features with telemetry and command via a serial bus interface.

The HiDRON Suborbital Space Plane

Stratodynamics is collaborating with researchers at the University of Waterloo to reengineer their remotely deployed stratospheric glider known as the HiDRON. To date, the record setting HiDRON unmanned aerial system (UAS) has successfully deployed a number of scientific payloads to the stratosphere and back. However, flight in such low density atmosphere is fraught with laminar airflow challenges and control issues.

This collaboration will produce a new iteration of the HiDRON, custom designed for this poorly understood flight regime. The CSA grant will enable development and testing of the airframe at stratospheric altitudes.

The Canadian aviation community will benefit from the aerodynamic advances arising from this collaboration as the altitudinal ceiling of commercial airspace rises closer to near space.

Computer vision (CV) tasks (e.g. image classification and object detection) enable autonomous decision-making for a range of space applications and platforms, such as rovers, landers, and service vehicles, and reduce the workload and risks associated with humans in any decision-making loop. Such applications rely on high-performance Artificial Intelligence (AI) capability.

Recent advancements in AI have leveraged the nearly limitless computational resources of cloud computing, and as such the resultant solutions are not inherently transferrable, or optimally designed, to be hosted onboard satellite platforms which have very constrained resources. This project will develop a reconfigurable AI capability that supports CV tasks and is optimized to be hosted as part of a portable system using hardware with a path to space-qualification. The results of this project will support a range of future scenarios including imaging support for autonomous space vehicle docking, decision support for autonomous probes or landers, autonomous robotic systems, satellite star trackers as well as remote sensing targeting decision support.

Wyvern is developing technology which will enable an optical telescope to unfold in space, allowing to deliver higher quality images of earth from even smaller satellites. Upon deployment from a stowed position, the increased light collecting area of the primary mirror would allow to take images with a higher spectral content. Essentially, it would allow to build an inexpensive satellite with the data performance of a much larger and more expensive one.
Currently, farmers pay significant fees to specialist companies to fly airplanes and drones over their fields to determine crop health and vitality. This would be more convenient and affordable from a satellite platform. Currently there are no satellites that provide fully suitable products. Wyvern is developing a solution that will change this.