Grants and Contributions

Ribbit is retrofitting an airplane with custom in-house software and hardware to fly autonomously. This self-flying airplane will be used in proof-of-concept flights with northern retailers and suppliers who are interested in Ribbit’s future autonomous cargo airline service.

Remote Telewound care puts the power of calibrated wound measurement in the hands of untrained patients and caregivers, simplified by AI tools to help capture better images and valid measurement data, from hard to reach parts of the body.

A lidar (Light Detection and Ranging) instrument is a remote sensing device that determines the range to an object by emitting laser pulses towards it and analyzing the reflection. By emitting multiple pulses, a lidar can create an accurate 3D point cloud of the target object. Teledyne Optech is a leader in the lidar industry and develops and manufactures advanced lidar survey systems that are currently being used on Earth and in Space.

Teledyne Optech's proposed AI-Enabled 2-Axis Scanner will use an enhanced dual-axis scanning technique to collect frames of lidar data at a high rate, process the data into a point cloud in real-time, and supply the data to an artificial intelligence (AI) engine for analysis and object classification.

This technology can be applied to numerous surveying and monitoring applications, in Optech's existing commercial markets (terrestrial scanning, mining, etc.), as well as in various marine, defense and space applications.

Garrow Space Systems is a Canadian start up developing a brand new small propulsion system. Their system will be electrically powered and use less traditional fuels to enable higher efficiency thrust. This unique design will also enable more precise control of spacecraft in low earth orbit and beyond. This is a key technology to enable industry in space on a scale unlike anything we have seen so far. The project is managed by a group of recent graduates and current university students from British Columbia. The team is looking to use their unique skill set enabled by Canadian Space Agency projects such as the Canadian CubeSat Project to advance the Canadian space industry and economy.

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.

The Network for Research on Hateful Conduct and Right-Wing Extremism in the CAF will examine policy issues related to hateful conduct and radicalization in the CAF. It will be comprised of a multidisciplinary group of Canadian experts and practitioners operating within regional hubs. The network will conduct case studies, social media analyses, and interviews with members of the Defence Team to better understand the issue and inform responses.

Emergency assistance for extremely poor and vulnerable households to deal with the COVID-19 crisis in the Artibonite department

Preventing and protecting vulnerable communities from the dangers of COVID-19 and the worsening of GBV